Shimla : Fifteen persons were killed and seven injured Sunday when a bus carrying tribal dancers fell into a deep gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s mountainous tribal Lahaul & Spiti district,police said.
“All the 15 bodies have been recovered from the accident site.The bodies had to be pulled out by using long ropes on the steep hill side,†said Lahaul & Spiti S.P.Vimal Gupta.
The accident took place in the wee hours at Gamoor, some 20 km from the state headquarters Keylong.
The 22 member troupe of dancers was travelling from neighbouring Leh in Jammu & Kashmir state to take part in a tribal fair in the Lahaul valley.
Parts of the Lahaul valley have experienced unseasonal snowfall over the weekend.
In a 20 year career published widely. He has worked for the BBC, AFP, The Statesman, IANS and the Business Standard . Known for his hard hitting writing and occasional off-beat stories. He lives in Shimla.
Life of an artist is no more specially important than life of a common man.But the loss of an a tribal artist is a loss of destroyed last of the bird of its species whose song we will never hear again. Robust safety infrastructure on mountain roads, accompanied by the equally robust enforcement of safe driving rules should be a strong point of a hill state. The penalities for using rickety buses, trucks and vehivles and the untrained drivers should be exemplary for the owners, as is the case in developed countries. But alas, it is the weakest link here. Are the homoeosapiens in the Government who refuse to eveolve, understand? Who cares? A life lost is an isolated sorrow for the family, wherwas the life goes on, in a society that lives from an accident to accident. I sometimes wonder how the things would be if, for every avoidable accident some babu in transport ministry is held responsible?