Nine people eight tourists and their driver were killed after a boulder racing down a hill during a landslide smashed into their tempo traveller in Sangla valley of Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday.
Among those killed was a 27-year-old naval officer from Darri in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district and his US-based friend; a 34-year-old woman ayurveda doctor from Jaipur; and three members of a family a young chartered accountant, his sister, and their mother from Sikar in Rajasthan.
A 27-year-old woman from Nagpur, Pratiksha Sunil Patil, also died in the mishap. The driver of the minibus, Umrab Singh (42), belonged to Delhi. Officials were unable to say immediately where the ninth victim, identified as Kumar Ulhas Vedpathak, was from.
Kinnaur public relations officer Narinder Sharma said the tourists had been brought to Sangla by a Delhi-based travel agency. Two of the 11 people in the vehicle Shiril Obroy from Delhi and Naveen Bhardbaaj from Mohali escaped with injuries.
Kinnaur Superintendent of Police S R Rana said eight of the victims were killed in the minibus that was knocked off the road and fell in a ditch; the ninth succumbed to injuries in a nearby hospital. There were four women and five men among the dead.
A 45-year-old man, Ranjeet Singh, who was working in the fields, suffered injuries.