GUWAHATI, April 20: At least 51 people were killed on Thursday when a bus carrying a wedding party skidded off the road and slid into a pond in India’s northeast, police said.

“We have extricated 51 bodies so far. There could be some more people in the pond and divers are at work,” police officer A. Barman told AFP.

The bus had been carrying the groom’s party of about 70 people from his home village of Raha in the eastern hilly state of Assam to Goumari village in the same state when it slid off the road in heavy rain early Thursday, police said.

Most victims drowned after being unable to fight their way out of the bus which plunged deep into the pond, another police officer at the scene said.

The bridegroom, who was travelling in another vehicle behind the bus, was not involved in the accident while the bride was waiting for him in Goumari village.

The wedding was postponed.—AFP