Truck crash kills 86 pilgrims in India

Posted 09 9 2007 5:50AM

JODHPUR, India (AFP) - The toll in one of India's worst road accidents mounted to 86 on Saturday as one of scores rescued from the mangled wreckage of a truck that fell into a ravine died in hospital, police said.

Some 200 people were crowded into the truck travelling to a religious fair in the desert state of Rajasthan in western India.

"One person has died in hospital. This takes the number of dead to 86," said police superintendent Rupinder Singh in Rajsamand district, 200 kilometres (124 miles) from Jodhpur city, where the accident occurred after dark on Friday.

The truck driver lost control on a sharp bend in a mountainous region and smashed through a protective roadside wall, plunging into the 80-foot (25-metre) deep gorge, said Singh.

Apart from the deaths, some 60 people were in three hospitals, many seriously injured, police said.

A large number of the dead were women, said police, adding about 50 remaining passengers were believed to have survived unhurt or with minor injuries.

Eighty-three bodies had been handed over to relatives, police and local officials said.

At least three of the victims were so badly mutilated that their bodies could not be identified, police said.

Rajasthan's home minister Gulab Chand Kataria told AFP late Saturday that a district transport officer had been "suspended for negligence of duty" that resulted in people overloading the 10-wheel truck -- meant for hauling cars and heavy equipment.

Police official Singh said he suspected negligence. "Such a large number of people being carried in a truck like (this) has never been seen," he said.

Earlier, a witness told AFP that piercing screams and cries could be heard as survivors called for help from the ravine where the truck fell.

"I stopped the car and saw a truck lying upside down in the ravine," said Udaipur district official Shikhar Agarwal, who was driving by soon after the accident.

"The wireless phone was not working so we could not even call for help from there. We started sending people to hospital in private cars."

Passers-by also alerted the nearest police post.

Nearly a dozen cranes were brought to the accident site overnight as rescuers using searchlights scrambled to find survivors and recover bodies.

The smashed vehicle had been pulled out of the ravine and investigators were examining it to determine the cause of the accident.

During the day, anxious villagers thronged hospitals where the injured were taken.

"We knew the truck driver who was going and he told us to come too. So 54 of us went with him," said 25-year-old Manji Lal, lying in a bed with a bandaged foot in Rajsamand's main hospital.

"It all happened so suddenly we had no idea where our family members ended up. People were screaming for a long time until someone came and rescued us."

Television channels showed patients attached to intravenous drips, including a boy in a blue shirt with a thick bandage around his head.

"Suddenly the brakes failed," the boy told the Aaj Tak channel.

The driver of the truck, who was killed in the accident, appeared to have used a wooden plank to rig up extra seating, police said, and may have offered a free ride to the shrine of a mystic saint revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

His own family was also on the truck, but their whereabouts were not known, police said.

Thousands of pilgrims travel to neighbouring Ramdevra village to attend the annual festival of the saint Ramdev, believed to have the power to cure leprosy and other diseases.

The state government announced compensation of 50,000 rupees (1,225 dollars) for the relatives of the deceased.

Major accidents are common in India due to bad roads, overloaded and ill-maintained vehicles and careless driving.

The Delhi-based Institute of Road Traffic Education of India says the country accounts for nearly 10 percent of fatal accidents worldwide.