By IANS,
Kathmandu : Another bus skidded off the road and fell into a river in Nepal Wednesday, the third such accident in as many days.
While the toll in the accidents Monday and Tuesday soared to 50, a passenger bus starting out from Gulariya, the main town in remote Bardiya district in farwestern Nepal, plunged into the swirling Karnali river.
Police and local residents rescued 25 passengers while some were still missing, private television station Sagarmatha Television said.
The toll in Monday’s bus accident in midwestern Dang district, the worst in Nepal this year, reached 43.
Seven more people, mostly pilgrims, died Tuesday in a second bus accident in Tanahun district in western Nepal.
After the 10-year Maoist insurgency that killed over 13,000 people and after diseases, road crashes claim the most lives in Nepal.
Besides poor maintenance of roads and vehicles, reckless driving and overcrowding contribute to making travelling by road in Nepal amongst the most dangerous in Asia.
An earlier government made a half-hearted effort to form a commission and check the incidence of road disasters.
But political instability and squabbling among the ruling parties for power have blocked development work in Nepal for decades.