Bus catches fire in India, results in 25 death .

A bus that caught fire overnight on a highway in western India on Saturday left at least 25 people dead and eight more injured, according to authorities.

After midnight, the bus was headed to the city of Pune when it collided with a pole, crashed, and caught fire from its diesel tank, according to senior police official Baburao Mahamuni, speaking to AFP.

“There were about 30-35 people on the bus. Twenty-five people have died and eight others are injured,” he said.

A hospital at the disaster site in Maharashtra state, around 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Mumbai, India’s financial hub, has admitted the injured, including the bus driver.

Police said they had launched an inquiry into the crash.

“The priority at this moment is to identify the bodies and hand them over to their family members,” local media quoted police superintendent Sunil Kadasane as saying.

Images showed the bus engulfed in flames and later the charred remains of the vehicle overturned on the highway.

Three children were among the dead, a police officer told reporters.

“Deeply saddened by the devastating bus mishap in Buldhana,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives. May the injured recover soon.”

Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra, expressed “deep grief” over the incident and promised the relatives of the deceased victims 500,000 rupees ($6,100) in compensation.

On India’s extensive network of roads, which are infamously unsafe and badly maintained, accidents are frequent.

The biggest contributing factors are driving too fast, failing to use a seatbelt, and not wearing a helmet. Two-wheeler sales greatly outpace those of cars.

Despite owning only 1% of the world’s vehicles, India is responsible for 11% of road fatalities, according to a World Bank report published in 2021.

According to the same statistic, 150,000 people die in car crashes in India each year, or one every four minutes.

The article continued by stating that road accidents cost the Indian economy $75 billion annually and that many accident victims fall into poverty as a result of high medical costs and lost wages.

At least 21 people were killed in a bus crash that occurred off a bridge in India in May, purportedly as a result of the driver dozing off behind the wheel.

Additionally, a bus carrying wedding guests ran off the road in northern India last October, plunging into a steep valley, killing at least 31 people.