On Tuesday, November 3, a bus carrying more than 65 passengers crashed as it slid off a Nepal road. At least 30 people were killed in the crash after the bus skidded more than 650 feet down a hill.
Nepal has been experiencing a fuel shortage, which has caused the public transportation vehicles still on the road to be massively overcrowded. A lot of the public transportation has been eliminated due to the fuel shortage leaving the ones in service to carry all the users, government officials said.
This fact could be the reason for the bus crash, as passengers were not only inside, but also on top of the bus, overloading the bus and its capacity, said chief district government officer in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, Shiva Ram Gelal.
The route of the bus went through rough terrains with narrow, windy roads surrounded by hills and cliffs. The combination of overcrowded buses and the conditions of the routes has caused other bus crashes like this one in the past.
In 2013 over 30 people were killed due to a bus hitting a pole and slithering almost 700 feet. In 2011 more than 40 people died after a bus ran into a river, which could have been caused by overcrowding, Binod Singh, a Kathmandu-based police spokesman said.
Soon after the bus crashed, Nepalese locals, military troops and police officers carried out a rescue operation in Ramche, a village north of the capital Kathmandu. The majority of the victims were taken to a hospital in Rasuwa where Ramche is located. Some of the passengers were taken to the capital to be treated for their injuries.
Image via Flickr/@Andrew and Annemarie
