HYDERABAD, India: A truck loaded with concrete stone chips rammed into a passenger bus in southern India early Monday, killing at least 20 people and injuring about two dozens, local authorities said.
The state-run transport bus was carrying around 70 passengers en route to Hyderabad city in southern Telangana state when a truck coming from opposite direction collided with it near the town of Chevalla, local district official K. Chandrakala told The Associated Press.
The front of the bus was badly mangled, trapping several passengers inside.
Rajendra Prasad, superintendent at Chevalla hospital said 20 bodies have been moved to the mortuary and will be handed over to their families after verification.
The accident came a day after a minibus carrying passengers in western state of Rajasthan rammed into a parked truck late Sunday, killing at least 15 people and injuring two others.
The passengers were returning to the desert city of Jodhpur after offering prayers to a Hindu deity in the pilgrimage town of Kolayat, officials said.
Among the dead were 10 women, four children, and the driver, senior government official Shweta Chauhan told The Associated Press. The injured have been admitted to a local hospital for treatment.
The victims were trapped in the mangled mass of metal that the tempo traveler minibus was reduced to after the accident, Chauhan said.
Senior police officer Kundan Kanwaria said the driver was trying to overtake another vehicle but crashed into the truck parked on the highway.
“It seems the driver couldn’t even apply the brakes before hitting the truck,” Kanwaria said.
It is not uncommon in India for vehicles, especially trucks and trailers, to be parked haphazardly along highways, often without warning lights or reflectors. Such poorly marked stops frequently pose serious risks for nighttime drivers and have led to several deadly crashes in recent years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telangana’s highest-elected official Revanth Reddy and Rajasthan’s BHajjan Lal Sharma, offered their condolences to the bereaved families.
The crash in Rajasthan came less than three weeks after a suspected short circuit sparked a fire on a passenger bus in the state, rapidly engulfing the vehicle in flames and burning at least 20 people to death.
Truck rams into bus in southern India, killing at least 20
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Truck rams into bus in southern India, killing at least 20
- The state-run transport bus was carrying around 70 passengers en route to Hyderabad city
- The front of the bus was badly mangled, trapping several passengers inside
Nobel peace laureates who did not pick up their prize
PARIS: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who lives in hiding, is not the first Nobel Peace Prize winner who could not pick up their prize. Here are other notable absentees at the Oslo awards ceremony:
2023: Narges Mohammadi
The Iranian activist had to celebrate her Nobel Prize from a cell in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, was represented by her 17-year-old twins, both living in exile in France, who read a speech she managed to smuggle out of her cell.
She had been in prison since 2021 but was released in December 2024 for a limited period on medical leave.
2022: Ales Bialiatski
The Belarusian human rights campaigner was in jail. He was represented by his wife Natalia Pinchuk.
Bialiatski, the founder of Viasna — the main human rights defense organization in Belarus — was sentenced in 2023 to 10 years in prison for “foreign currency trafficking.”
2010: Liu Xiaobo
The Chinese dissident was in prison serving an 11 year jail term for “subversion.” His chair remained symbolically empty, where the prize was placed.
His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest after the prize was announced and his three brothers were blocked from leaving China.
A veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Liu died in 2017 of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital at the age of 61, after being transferred there from prison.
1991: Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar’s democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize when she was under house arrest as part of a crackdown by the military leadership on the pro-democracy opposition.
Though given permission to travel, she declined due to fears of potentially not being able to return to her country.
Aung San Suu Kyi was represented at the ceremony by her two sons and her husband, who accepted the award on her behalf. Symbolically, an empty chair was again placed on the stage.
1983: Lech Walesa
The Polish trade union activist who forced authorities to recognize the communist bloc’s first and only free trade union, Solidarity (Solidarnosc) feared he would not be allowed back into Poland if he traveled to Oslo for the ceremony. His wife Danuta and his son represented him.
1975: Andrei Sakharov
The Soviet dissident and physicist was honored by the Nobel committee for his “fearless personal commitment in upholding the fundamental principles for peace between men.” Sakharov was barred by Soviet authorities from traveling to Norway and was represented by his wife Elena Bonner, also a rights activist.
1973: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
The 1973 award, one of the most controversial in the history of the peace prize, was given in the absence of the two recipients, who had reached a Vietnam ceasefire agreement that soon failed.
Le Duc Tho turned down the prize, saying that the ceasefire was not respected. Kissinger did not go to Oslo for fear of demonstrations.
1935: Carl von Ossietzky
German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize.
Von Ossietzky had been arrested three years earlier in a raid on opponents of Adolf Hitler following the Reichstag fire.
A German lawyer tricked his family into allowing him to pocket the prize money and was sentenced to two years of hard labor. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.
