The passenger bus (Lu 1 Kha 6231) heading for Butwal collided with the Sandhikharka-bound truck (Lu 1 Kha 7827) and skidded off the road. Eight were killed on the spot while the others died on the way to hospital. There were 49 passengers on board when the incident occurred.

Twenty-three seriously injured passengers were airlifted to Kathmandu by a Nepal Army helicopter while the others are receiving treatment at Lumbini Zonal Hospital in Butwal.

Worse still, one more person was killed when a jeep which set off to the incident site on a rescue mission met with an accident. Tam Bahadur Kumal of Wangla-9 sitting on the vehicle’s roof died in the incident.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Dipendra GC said that the speeding bus and the truck fell some 200 metres below the road after the collision. All the deceased were passengers on the bus.

“After the collision, the bus immediately swerved off the road while the truck lost its traction and fell off after a few moments,” Police Inspector Govinda Panthi quoted the witnesses as saying. The driver and three passengers of the truck survived the accident, jumping off the vehicle.

The truck, carrying some 200 cooking gas cylinders, overturned and fell on top of the bus increasing the number of casualties, said Panthi.

Secutiry personnel suspect the crash occurred mainly due to carelessness of the truck driver, who absconded after the incident. “The Sandhikharka-Gorusinge road is very prone to accident. The situation is only compounded by careless drivers,” said Ramkaji Rana Magar, the chief at the Nepal Army’s Chandanath Battalion. Five persons died in a similar accident last year, while 18 more perished in a jeep crash in 2012.