Two people were killed and 36 others were injured when a Rawalpindi-bound passenger bus fell into a ravine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Upper Kohistan area on Sunday evening, according to a rescue official.

Rescue 1122 spokesperson Abdur Rehman told Dawn.com that a private company’s passenger bus carrying 38 passengers bound for Rawalpindi from Skardu fell into a ravine near the Shetial area in Upper Kohistan’s Harban tehsil.

“The bus driver and a passenger died in the accident and 36 others were injured and had been shifted to district headquarters hospital Chilas in Diamer,” he said.

The spokesperson identified the deceased passenger as Mohammad Nadeem, a resident of Vehari in Punjab and bus driver Sadaqat Hussain, a resident of Gilgit’s Dinor area.

Rehman told Dawn.com that most of the injured hailed from Skardu, four from the Bisham Dandai area of Shangla, and two from parts of Punjab province.

Some patients in critical condition are undergoing surgeries while the rest are stable. Women and children were among the injured passengers, the spokesperson added.

Accidents are frequent in KP and northern areas due to rugged terrain, poor roads, overloaded vehicles, and minimal traffic regulation. Narrow, winding routes, harsh weather, and driver fatigue further increase the risk, making these areas particularly accident-prone.

In September, three people, including two army personnel, died and one was injured after a landslide struck a bus on the Karakoram Highway (KKH) in the Dasu area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Upper Kohistan district, officials said.

Speaking to Dawn.com, Upper Kohistan District Police Officer (DPO) Mukhtiar Ahmad said a Hunza-bound passenger bus of the Northern Areas Transport Corporation was struck by big boulders, resulting in the deaths of three passengers.

He said two of the deceased were army personnel and one was a civilian while one person was injured. Ahmad said two of the deceased belonged to Gilgit-Baltistan while the third was from Rawalpindi.

He said the bodies and the injured were moved to the District Headquarters Hospital Dasu.