26 tourists from Maharashtra killed as bus plunges into Nepal river gorge (2nd Ld)

Mumbai, Aug 23 (IANS) In a mammoth tragedy, at least 26 tourists hailing from Maharashtra were killed and another 14 injured, some seriously, when a bus plunged into a gorge of the Marsyangdi river in Ambukhereni area of Tanahun district of Nepal on Friday, state government officials here said.

The bus with 40 Indian passengers, mostly from Maharashtra's Jalgaon district, was plying from the mountainous tourist resort of Pokhara to the Nepal capital Kathmandu when it fell 150-feet into a river valley.

Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) Director Lahu Mali said that the bodies of the victims and the injured persons will enter India from Maharajganj district of the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border on Saturday afternoon.

From there they will be taken to Gorakhpur Airport by road, a distance of around 4 hours, and arrangements are being made for the onward journey to Nashik Airport, and then by road to Jalgaon.

Since it is not possible to transport so many bodies and injured persons in a commercial flight, the Maharashtra government has written to the Indian Air Force (IAF) to arrange for a special flight.

The special flight is likely to fly from Gorakhpur to Nashik – the nearest airport to Jalgaon – and the state government will bear all the expenses for the same.

Earlier on Friday, Deputy Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that "some devotees from Maharashtra" were killed in the bus tragedy and several others were injured.

There were around 41 passengers, all hailing from Bhusaval, Talvel and Varangaon towns in Jalgaon, in the ill-fated bus, of which 26 have been confirmed as killed in the accident and around 14 others injured.

The major rescue and relief operations were carried out by the local police, district and Nepal Army authorities which was completed by this evening, said officials here.

As the details of the gruesome disaster trickled this afternoon, the state government maintained constant contact with the Nepal Embassy in Delhi while the Jalgaon Collector was in touch with the Collector of Maharajganj (Uttar Pradesh).

Some government officials from the Maharajganj Collectorate had proceeded to the India-Nepal border to render help, as the bus had a Uttar Pradesh registration number, though exact details were not available.

Fadnavis added that the Maharashtra government was in touch with the Uttar Pradesh government and the Nepal authorities to bring back the bodies of the deceased victims and the injured persons back home.

This is the second major calamity that befell people from Jalgaon in a foreign land in the past three months.

On June 4, four medical students from Jalgaon and one from Thane had drowned in the Volkhov River in Russia when they had gone to save a female student who was stuck in the water.

They were -- Jishan Pinjari and Jia Pinjari (20), Harshal Desale (19) -- and Malik Yakub (21) of Mira Road town in Thane.

In the Nepal tragedy, the SDMA, state Ministers Girish Mahajan and Anil Patil are also coordinating the operations to bring back the survivors and bodies.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)

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