At least 18 people were killed in eastern India on Tuesday after a bus ferrying Hindu pilgrims collided with a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders, officials said.

Visuals from the site in Jharkhand state showed the mangled wreckage of the bus, with its rear portion almost entirely burnt.

Local lawmaker Nishikant Dubey said the pilgrims were travelling to a Hindu shrine to celebrate the sacred month of Shravan, coinciding with the onset of the monsoons in the subcontinent.

“Eighteen devotees lost their lives due to a bus and truck accident,” Dubey said on social media.

The pilgrims were carrying holy water from the Ganges to offer to the Hindu god of destruction, Lord Shiva.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his “deepest condolences to the families of the devotees who lost their lives”.

“The road accident in Jharkhand’s Deoghar is extremely tragic,” his office said on social media.

Tens of thousands of people die in road accidents in India every year, according to official data.

More than 172,000 died in road crashes in 2023, Indian transport minister Nitin Gadkari told parliament.

Last November, a bus plunged into a deep Himalayan ravine in the northern state of Uttarakhand, killing at least 36 passengers and injuring several others.