MUMBAI (Reuters) - Forty eight people were killed and eleven injured when an overcrowded bus spun off a slippery road and fell into a deep ravine in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand on Sunday, police said.
"It was a 28-seater bus but was carrying 59 passengers," said a police official at the office of senior superintendent of police from the local area called Pauri where the accident took place. He declined to be identified since he was not authorised to speak to the media.
"It looks like due to overcapacity and bad road conditions, the bus toppled off."
Rescue operations are complete and police are trying to get the dead bodies identified by relatives and friends, the police official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted saying he was "extremely saddened by the bus accident in Pauri Garhwal" while Uttarakhand state Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has ordered a probe into the accident.
(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean)