14 dead in Pakistan wedding bus crash, bride survives

EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / In this photograph taken and released by Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) on November 13, 2024, mourners carry a deceased’s body who died in a wedding bus accident in Gilgit. Agence France-Presse

GILGIT, Pakistan — A bus carrying guests home from a wedding plunged into a river in northern Pakistan killing at least 14 people, officials said Wednesday, with the bride so far the only known survivor.

“There were 25 people on the bus and so far 14 dead bodies have been recovered while 10 are still missing,” said Wazir Asad Ali, a rescue official in Gilgit-Baltistan.

“The bride is out of danger and she is being treated in a Gilgit hospital,” Ali added.

READ: Bus accident kills 10 wedding guests in Australia

Naik Alam, a senior police official from the area, told AFP the driver appeared to have been speeding when he lost control at a curve.

The groom’s family had travelled from Punjab, more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) away, for the wedding and were returning home when the accident happened.

Road accidents with high fatalities are common in Pakistan, where safety measures are lax, driver training is poor, and transport infrastructure is often decrepit.

READ: Bus in Mexico crashes after colliding with trailer, killing 24 people

In Balochistan in August, 12 men died when their bus crashed into a ravine on the Makran Coastal Highway.

In another accident that month, 24 people on board a bus were killed when it plunged into a ravine near the town of Azad Pattan on the border between Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.