GILGIT: Four people, including a woman and a child, were killed and 12 others injured when a tourist van fell into a ravine from Babusar Top road on Sunday.

Rescue service sources said all victims were from Thatta in Sindh and belonged to four families related with each other.

The source said the van carrying 16 tourists was going to Islamabad from Gilgit. The van skidded and plunged into the 300-metre-deep ravine near Geeti-Das between Chilas and Babsuar Top.

The victims had come to Gilgit-Baltistan to spend some days in summer.

Local volunteers shifted the bodies and the injured to the District Headquarters Hospital in Chilas, where the injured are under treatment. Hospital sources said the condition of two injured people, including the driver, was critical. The bodies and the injured will be shifted to Islamabad on Monday (today).

The names of the deceased and the injured and cause of the accident could not be ascertained.

The Babusar Pass road, frequently used by tourists, remains open from the end of June to October every year. Then it remains closed following heavy snowfall at Babusar Top.

A resident of Chilas, the district headquarters of Diamer, told Dawn that accidents frequently took place on the road and this season 20 people had been killed in accidents there.

He said bad design of the road and absence of a protective wall along it were main causes of accidents.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2017