DEHRADUN:  With the killing of 25 Baratis in the Pauri Garhwal bus accident on Tuesday, the residents and civil society groups have expressed their concern over  a series of high mortality road accidents in Uttarakhand over the years.

It was for the second time that as many as 25  people were killed in a bus accident in Uttarakhand after the bus they were travelling in plunged into a 500 m deep gorge.

The bus was reduced to the mangled remains before it landed in the deep gorge after rolling down for 500 m from the Simri road.  There were screams and cries in the gorge when locals responded to the first call of the accident, said locals.   

On June 5, as many as 26 people were killed in a similar road bus accident at Damta in Uttarakhand.

Police and SDRF laid ropes to rescue the remaining 20 people, who suffered serious injuries, from the deep gorge.   

The bus accident took place near Simri village that broke all hell loose on the families of bride and groom of the KadaGaon village.  

The injured were admitted to the hospital in the region where they were reported to be stable.

There were  45 Baratis travelling in the ill-fated from Laldang Haridwar to KadaGaon, said SP Pauri  Yashwant Singh Chauhan, who led the rescue operation.  

Residents blamed the poor narrow roads which have no crash barriers and road signs, ramshackled buses, rash and drunken driving as major reasons for road accidents in the state.   

SDFC president Anup Nautiyal has  expressed his concern  over a series of bus accidents in the state.

He  has urged the Pushkar Singh Dhami's Uttarakhand government to take mass awareness  and accident-prevention campaign among all stakeholders and state agencies to check these road accidents in the state so that previous lives could be saved.