India bus crash: At least 26 killed as vehicle plunges into well

Two-year-olds count among the dead, official says

A man walks past the wrangled remains of a bus after an accident in Nashik, India (National Disaster Response Force via AP)

At least twenty-six people were killed and 32 injured when a bus and a motorised rickshaw collided with each other and plunged into a nearby well in India, police have said.

The accident happened in the western state of Maharashtra late on Tuesday, according to Suhas Deshmukh, a local police officer for the Nashik district.

“Both vehicles crashed into each other and the impact caused both to fall into a well on the side of the road,” he said.

He said two children aged two years old were among those killed.

Rescue workers reportedly spent the night retrieving bodies.

“The accident in Maharashtra’s Nashik district is unfortunate,” tweeted Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister.

“In this hour of sadness, my thoughts are with the bereaved families,” he said. “May the injured recover at the earliest.”

India’s roads are among the world’s deadliest, with 464,910 accidents in 2017 that killed nearly 148,000 people, according to the latest available government data.

Reuters