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Journalism of Courage
A crowded bus veered off a mountain highway and was dangling over a river in eastern Nepal on Thursday,police said. At least 43 people were killed in the accident and more were feared missing.
“Police,soldiers and villagers were having a hard time reaching the wreckage,which which was caught in trees just above the Sunkosi River near Jhagajholi village,about 150 miles (240 kilometers) east of Katmandu,” said police official Lokendra Shrestha.
He said initial reports from the scene said 43 bodies had been recovered,but a still unknown number of people were feared trapped in the wreckage or thrown into the river below. “There were also some body parts scattered around the scene of the accident,” he said.
Buses in the country were more crowded than usual because of the end of two-week national festival that sees people return back to their jobs from their home villages.
The bus was traveling on the B P Koirala Highway,a narrow route with hairpin bends that in most parts is just wide enough for one vehicle to pass. The site of the accident is a four hour drive from the nearest city.
Bus accidents in the mountainous Himalayan nation are common and often blamed on poorly maintained vehicles and roads.
