A tyre blowout caused a bus to lose control and crash into a road divider before bursting into flames, killing at least 25 people on an expressway in Maharashtra early this morning.
Police officer Sunil Kadasne told the PTI news agency that 33 people were on the bus when the crash occurred around 1:30am on Saturday morning on a highway in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra state. Eight survivors were taken to a hospital, he said.
The bus was travelling from Nagpur to Pune on Samruddhi Mahamarg expressway when it crashed and its fuel tank caught fire.
The majority of deaths were caused due to burning, police said. Police said most of the passengers were sleeping at the time of the accident. The
Maharashtra state’s Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted separate tweets expressing sorrow, and said they would pay support to each victim’s family, amounting to 700,000 rupees.
