Jammu: Ten people, including two women, were killed and 34 others injured in three separate road accidents in Udhampur, Kishtwar and Ramban districts of Jammu and Kashmir Saturday.
A private bus, carrying nearly 40 people to Kashmir, skidded off a hilly road and rolled down into a deep gorge at Chandeh village near Surinsar in Udhampur district around midnight after its driver lost control of the vehicle, officials said.
They said the driver had reportedly taken the interior route to dodge traffic police in view of the restrictions on the main Jammu-Srinagar national highway which opened for traffic on Saturday after five days of closure due to landslides.
Five people - Mohammad Iqbal Barkat and Manzoor Ahmad (both residents of Shopian district), Farooq Ahmad and Asiya Bashir (Bandipora) and Javed Ahmad (Budgam) - were found dead while 32 were rescued and rushed to Government Medical College hospital in Jammu for treatment, the officials said.
They said one of the injured, Ghulam Ahmad Mir of Baramulla, was declared dead by doctors on arrival while five others were stated to be 'critical'.
In another accident, the officials said three people, including a young woman, were killed and three were injured when a cab fell into a deep gorge at Dadpeth-Mugalmaidan in Kishtwar district around 9.40am Saturday.
The cab was on way to Kishtwar when the accident happened, the officials said.
A driver, Gurdev Singh of Jammu, was killed in a head-on collision between two trucks near Ramban on Jammu-Srinagar national highway Saturday morning.