At least 27 Indian nationals were killed and 16 others injured when a bus with an Indian registration number plunged into the Marsyangdi river at Anbukhaireni Rural Municipality in Tanahun district on Friday.

The bus was en route to Kathmandu from Pokhara when it skidded off the road at Ainapahiro in ward 2 of the rural municipality and fell about 150 metres into the river at around 11:30 am.

While 26 people died on the spot, one more succumbed to injuries at the Old Medical College in Chitwan, according to Deputy Superintendent of Police Santosh Paudel of the District Traffic Police Office, Tanahun.

The injured were flown to Kathmandu on a Nepal Army helicopter. A total of 15 people are being treated at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj.

Dr Dinesh Kafle, director at the TU Teaching Hospital, told the Post on Friday evening that the injured had been admitted there, and one more injured was on the way.

Six of them are in critical condition. “One person is being treated in intensive care, and another is undergoing a surgery,” Kafle told the Post late in the evening. “Some critically injured patients may need intensive care, and we are trying to arrange additional [ICU] beds for them.”

Those brought to the hospital have serious wounds on various parts of their bodies.

It took nearly seven hours for the personnel of Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, and Nepal Army to rescue the injured and pull dead passengers from the crash site.

Arjun Khanal, a tourism entrepreneur who was at the crash site, described the scene as extremely harrowing.

“We arrived at the scene within 5 to 7 minutes of the accident and witnessed a terrifying sight,” said Khanal. “The bus had fallen about 150 metres down the road, and people were screaming for help. Three injured passengers were trying to escape through the bus windows.”

He said that the difficult terrain made the rescue operation extremely challenging. “People were crying for help, but bringing them up to the road was very difficult,” he said.

The tourists from Maharashtra, India, had set out from Pokhara for Kathmandu at 5am on Friday. They had travelled from Mumbai via Gorakhpur on a six-day tour of Nepal. They had booked a bus from Kesarwani Transport Travels in Gorakhpur to enter Nepal through the Belahiya border point in Rupandehi district. They were heading to Kathmandu for a visit to Pashupatinath Temple, and had also booked a hotel at Gaushala, Kathmandu, for Friday evening. Unfortunately, their journey ended in an accident.

“They had stayed at my hotel last night,” said Durga Prasad Pandey, a hotelier in Pokhara. “We were in a different vehicle, when suddenly we heard news of the bus crash.”

“The accident happened at around 11 am,” he said. “ There was a light drizzle, and the bus had just crossed a bend and was moving forward,” he added. “We heard that the driver might have felt dizzy, causing the bus to fall, but the exact cause will be revealed later. When we arrived at the accident site, the scene was horrifying and unbearable to watch.”

Rescuers at the accident site said big boulders on the riverbank prevented the bus from sinking into the river.

“We learned about the accident from a motorcyclist,” said Sagar Thapa of ward 9 in Palungtar Municipality of Gorkha. “When we arrived at the scene, the police were already setting up ropes. We joined the rescue efforts, and it was evident that rocks had stopped the bus from sinking into the river. Without those rocks, the river would have carried the bus off.”

Thapa said they retrieved 14 bodies immediately after the accident. “The scene was chaotic, with people desperately shouting for help,” Thapa said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar Raya of the District Police Office, Tanahun, said the cause of the accident remains unknown.

“The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. We have been engaged in rescue operations throughout the day, and investigations will begin now,” he said. More than 200 personnel from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, and local volunteers were involved in the rescue efforts.

The post-mortem of victims will be conducted at the Pokhara Institute of Health Sciences in Pokhara. Anbukhaireni Rural Municipality Chairman Shukra Chuman said the bodies will be sent to Pokhara for autopsy.

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said it is in constant touch with local authorities and the hospital staff for treatment of the injured and the earliest repatriation of the mortal remains of the deceased to India.

“@IndiainNepal is grieved to confirm the death of 27 Indians in the unfortunate road accident in Tanahun. The remaining 16 passengers have been airlifted to Kathmandu for further treatment at TU Teaching Hospital. Embassy mourns the loss of lives & prays for early recovery of the injured,” the embassy said in a post on X.

The embassy has shared emergency relief numbers: +977-9851107021, +977-9851316807 and +977-9749833292.