Daily Times

Twenty-two people drowned, while one person was saved on Tuesday after a bus carrying them plunged into a river in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district on Tuesday, according to rescue officials.

“Two dead bodies and an injured person were recovered from the river, while the search for the remaining 20 persons continues,” said Rescue 1122 spokesperson Shaukat Riaz.

Sharing details of the accident, Riaz told the media that a bus coming from Astore fell into the Indus River from Telchi bridge in the limits of Diamer district in Gilgit-Baltistan on Tuesday afternoon.

“The vehicle was part of a wedding procession heading towards Punjab’s Chakwal district,” he said.

He added the passengers who were onboard the bus had been identified and women were among the drowned.

“Nineteen of them belonged to Astore while four were from the Chakwal district of Punjab,” he said.

The district administration officials were also present on the spot and supervised the search operation in the river, Riaz added. President Asif Ali Zardari expressed his grief and conveyed his condolences to the victims’ relatives. Road accidents are frequent in KP and GB, exacerbated by harsh weather, rugged terrain, poorly maintained roads, overloaded vehicles, and minimal traffic regulations. The narrow, winding routes and driver fatigue further elevate risk, making these regions especially accident-prone. In October, two people were killed and 36 others were injured when a Rawalpindi-bound passenger bus fell into a ravine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Upper Kohistan area.