Eight people were killed and two others were injured on Thursday after a vehicle lost control and plunged nearly 300 metres into a deep gorge near Nail on the Chamba-Koti motor road in the Chamba development block of Uttarakhand’s Tehri Garhwal district, officials said.
The injured are undergoing treatment at the district hospital in Baurari and are reported to be out of danger.
District Disaster Management Officer of Tehri Garhwal, Brijesh Bhatt, said that a Max vehicle carrying around 10 passengers lost control and fell into the gorge near Nail village.
“Upon receiving information about the accident, teams of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the health department and local police rushed to the spot and launched relief and rescue operations,” Bhatt said.
“All the occupants of the vehicle are residents of Ghansali, who were returning there from Rishikesh after performing funeral rites,” he added.
Rescue teams from the SDRF, local police and fire services carried out operations to retrieve the victims and evacuate the injured from the gorge. District Magistrate Nitika Khandelwal, Tehri MLA Kishore Upadhyay, and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shweta Choubey reached the accident site and supervised the rescue and relief operations.
The district administration directed officials to ensure prompt medical treatment for the injured and make all necessary arrangements for relief operations.
