Car swept off bridge in Uttarakhand, nine dead

Nainital: Nine people, mostly tourists, drowned on Friday morning when their car was swept off a bridge by an overflowing Dhela river following heavy rains at Ramnagar here, police said.

The accident occurred around 5:45 am when the car was returning to Punjab, SSP Pankaj Bhatt said from the spot.

The bodies have been recovered. One person, 22-year-old Nazia, a resident of Corbett Colony, was rescued alive and sent to a hospital in Ramnagar, the SSP said.

As the car had a Punjab registration number, officials initially presumed it was carrying tourists from that state only. Six of those killed were women and three men, the police said.

They were identified as Ashia of Corbett Colony, Ramnagar, Kavita and Jahnvi of Patiala, Sangeeta Tamang of New Delhi's East of Kailash, Pinky of Noida, Hina of Delhi's Bhajanpura, Amandeep Singh of Punjab's Bhawanigarh, and Pawan and Iqbal of Patiala.

The bridge from where the car was swept down the river is low and accident-prone. The river often flows over it when there is a surge in its waters.

Eyewitnesses said the driver of the vehicle attempted to cross the bridge at a high speed, ignoring warnings from onlookers who signalled him to stop.

The tourists were staying at Small Town Homestay and Restaurant in Dhela and had started from there around 5 am, the SSP said.

The car had overturned after being swept off by the river and rescuers had to struggle for hours to retrieve the bodies, he said.