At least four passengers were killed and three others injured when a passenger bus skidded off the Hazara Expressway in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mansehra district on Tuesday morning, rescue officials said.

Rescue 1122 spokesperson, Amir Khadam, told Dawn.com that the passenger bus was heading towards Rawalpindi from Gilgit when the accident occurred.

He said that the dead bodies and injured were shifted to Mansehra’s King Abdullah Hospital.

“The incident occurred due to heavy rainfall which caused the coaster to slip and skid off the road,” he said.

Khadam added that the deceased and injured were from parts of Gilgit and Kohistan.

The Mansehra district administration also suspended traffic on Naran-Babusar Road after it received heavy snowfall on Monday night.

Deputy director National Highway Authority, Ghulam Abbas told Dawn.com that the Karakoram Highway (KKH) was blocked at two points in Kohistan but it had been reopened for all types of traffic.

Heavy rain coupled with strong winds lashed KP and Gilgit Baltistan’s northern region, coupled with snowfall at high altitude that turned the weather cold in the area.

Road accidents are frequent in KP and the northern areas, exacerbated by harsh weather, rugged terrain, poorly maintained roads, overloaded vehicles, and minimal traffic regulation. The narrow, winding routes and driver fatigue further elevate risk, making these regions especially accident-prone.

A day ago, two people were killed and 36 others were injured when a Rawalpindi-bound passenger bus fell into a ravine in KP’s Upper Kohistan area.

In September, three people, including two army personnel, died and one was injured after a landslide struck a bus on the KKH in the Dasu area of Upper Kohistan district.