At least 10 people were killed, including two children, and more than 30 injured after a bus collided with a lorry on a motorway in India's western Maharashtra state on Friday.
The bus was travelling from Mumbai to Shirdi — a small temple town famous for the shrine of Sai Baba, a spiritual master revered as a saint by millions across religious faiths.
Police said the bus, with about 50 passengers on board, collided head-on with the lorry at 5.30am.
Images shared on social media showed the mangled remains of the bus as locals and an ambulance tried to reach the injured.
Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde has ordered an investigation into the accident, which occurred near Pathare village on the road from Nashik city to Shirdi.
The state government will pay the cost of treatment for the injured, a statement from Mr Shinde’s office said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced compensation for victims' families and injured survivors in a message of condolence.
“Pained by the loss of lives in an accident on the Nashik-Shirdi highway," he said. "Condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. An ex-gratia of rupees 2 lakh [$2,400] from PMNRF [Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund] would be given to the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given rupees 50,000."
Each year in India, tens of thousands of people die in road accidents caused by negligence, faulty road design, lax laws and corruption, making crashes one of the country's biggest causes of unnatural death.
More than 150,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2021, according to figures released by the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways in December.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.
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