JAMMU, April 7: Up to 45 people are feared to have died after a bus skidded off a mountainous road in the state of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday and plunged into a fast-moving river, a senior government official said.

“Thirty-eight people were booked on the bus initially and more boarded later,” Vijay Bakaya, chief secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir state government, told Reuters. “Up to 45 people are feared dead.”

But police, who said they were struggling to locate bodies, told Reuters they could only confirm that two people had died and three were injured.

“The bus has fallen into the river, and its rapids and harsh terrain are hampering our efforts to extricate bodies,” Lalit Mohanty, a senior district police official, told Reuters by telephone.

The bus skidded off the road while negotiating a sharp bend and plunged 400 feet into the Chenab River near Atholi 170 km east of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, officials said.

The bus was on its way to Jammu.

Buses in Kashmir are overcrowded and accidents on narrow mountainous roads are common as highway safety is often neglected by drivers and poorly enforced by authorities.

In January, an overcrowded bus plunged into a deep gorge killing 52 people, including five children.—Reuters