Two Amarnath pilgrims dead, 35 hurt as bus falls into gorge

Two Amarnath pilgrims were killed and 35 injured on Wednesday morning when the bus they were travelling in skidded off the road and fell into a gorge near Nagrota on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the police said.

The injured have been shifted to the Government Medical College hospital Jammu for treatment. Five of them are in critical condition.

All the pilgrims were from Jammu city, the police said.

"These pilgrims were the first to take part in Sudh Mahadev mela (a festival in a mountainous area in Udhampur district, where it is believed that Lord Shiva and Parvati were married) and then they were to proceed to the Amarnath shrine," a police official said.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known, the police said.

The second batch of the Amarnath pilgrims had to wait for their onward journey at Samroli, about 80 km from Jammu, for three hours as landslides caused by rains had blocked the highway.

"Now the landslide has been cleared and the traffic is moving," the police official said.