Uttarakhand bus tragedy: 25 out of 28 pilgrims killed, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan announces ex-gratia

The death toll of the Uttarakhand bus accident reached 25, with the majority of the passengers of the bus headed to Yamunotri killed with the vehicle falling into a gorge. While 25 people have died in the accident, the remaining three are critically injured and seeking treatment.

All the pilgrims involved in the accident were from Madhya Pradesh, and the bus was en route to the Yamunotri temple in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. The accident took place near Rikhavu khadd on the way to the Himalayan shrine around two kilometres from Damta on NH-94, Uttarkashi District Disaster Management Officer Devendra Patwal said.

It was confirmed that all the pilgrims on the bus were from the Panna district of Madhya Pradesh. Apart from the bus driver and the helper, there were 28 passengers on the bus, out of which 25 are now confirmed as dead.

The authorities earlier recovered 19 bodies from the deep gorge and the wreckage of the bus, and rescue operations are currently underway. Three people injured in the accident have been admitted to the Community Health Centre in Damta, as per PTI reports.

Soon after the accident, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced an ex-gratia amount for the families of those who died in the tragedy. An aid of Rs 5 lakh has been announced by the MP government for the families of the victims.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his condolences over the accident and announced an aid of Rs 2 lakh each from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) for the family of those who lost their lives in the accident in Uttarakhand.

President Ram Nath Kovind expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased. “I feel pained by the sad news of the death of people in a bus accident in Uttarakhand,” he said in a tweet in Hindi. Union Home Minister Amit Shah also spoke to Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami about the tragic accident.