Bus Falls Into Gorge, Kills 16 In India

A bus accident in India killed at least 16 people Saturday, the Associated Press reported. Police indicated the bus rolled down a steep gorge while traveling on a road in the mountains of northern India, the news outlet said.

The accident left 22 other passengers injured -- 11 of them seriously -- police officer Manohar Singh Tamta told AP. The bus was bound for New Delhi before crashing in Uttarakhand state about 250 miles southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital. The bus reportedly tumbled about 655 feet into the gorge. The vehicle was apparently carrying about 40 passengers, the Indian Express reported. The accident's cause isn't yet known.

India has the world's deadliest roads, with more than 110,000 people killed on them annually, AP reported. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poor roadways and old vehicles, the news outlet said. To put India's fatalities in context, 32,719 people were killed in U.S. automobile accidents in 2013, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

A bus accident also killed 21 people in eastern India this month. The vehicle reportedly collided with an irrigation structure: Eight women and six children were among the dead. The crash took place in Rajahmundry, a city in Andhra Pradesh state. The bus was carrying pilgrims from another city in the same state.

Another bus accident killed 21 people after the vehicle fell into a ditch and caught fire in central India in early May, Al Jazeera reported. Fourteen passengers were injured in the incident, which had police scrambling through charred wreckage to identify victims. "The bodies are so badly burned that even to identify them as male and female is difficult," said Dr. L.K. Tiwari, the chief medical officer of the Panna district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, according to the New York Times.