MUZAFFARABAD, Aug 20: Twenty-nine people were killed and 10 others injured on Monday when a passenger bus veered off the narrow Neelum Valley road and fell hundreds of feet down onto the rocky bank of the River Neelum on Monday.

Initially there was confusion about the number of passengers travelling in the Muzaffarabad-bound bus, but officials, quoting witnesses and some survivors, put their number at 39.

The accident occurred at about 11:45 am near Chilyana village, some 50 kilometres northeast of here, said Nabeel Ahmed Qureshi, Deputy Commissioner of the Neelum district.

He said that 29 people were killed and 10 others were rescued with multiple fractures and head injuries. The injured were admitted to a nearby army health facility and were in stable condition, he said.“The bus fell more than 2000 feet down the road onto the rocky riverbank.

Given this height, the survival of 10 passengers is not less than a miracle,” the DC told Dawn by telephone from Athmuqam. The rescue operation was carried out by troops deployed in the area, police and local residents.

SP Neelum Abdul Hameed Abbasi said it was the most difficult rescue operation in view of the inaccessibility to the wreckage of the bus. Rescuers had to cover a distance of three kilometres to reach the wreckage to recover the bodies and the injured, he said.

The deputy commissioner said that the accident occurred due to a technical fault which had been casually removed by the driver in Chilyana bazaar, just two kilometres from the accident site.

“The shock absorber rods of the vehicle were severed but the driver fastened them with a rope and continued the journey, unmindful of its repercussions. They broke down again and caused the tragic accident,” he said.

Mr Qureshi said bodies of 24 people had been handed over to their relatives and bodies of five unidentified people had been kept in the hospital.

Those killed were identified as Ghulam Ahmed, Sabz Ali, Ali Asghar, Syed Alam Shah, Arab Hussain Shah, Shahida Bibi, Liaquat Shah, Khushnud Ali, Shamim Bibi, Faisal, Abdul Hamid, Masrab Hussain Shah, Taj Deen, Nuzhat, Mir Ahmed, Gulshan Bibi, Nazir Khan, Mutawalli, Asif Shah and Mohammad Asif, Dilshad Bibi and her two siblings whose names could not be ascertained.