No fewer than eleven students were killed in India on Thursday after their vehicle fell into mountain gorge, local officials said.

At least seven others travelling in the minibus were injured in the accident in South Kashmir’s Shopian district, senior administration official Mohammad Saleem Malik said, adding that the condition of two of them was critical.

The victims, aged between 20 and 25, nine of them are women, were enrolled in a computer training institute in Surankote town, Malik said.

India has the highest number of traffic fatalities in the world. An average of 135,000 people die on the country’s roads each year, according to government data.

Many accidents are reported in mountainous regions like Kashmir and they are usually caused by reckless driving, bad roads or the poor condition of vehicles.

 

NAN