Children among 26 dead as a bus and a truck collide head-on on the road through India’s rhino park

A bus carrying passengers through Assam’s Golaghat district collided head-on with a container truck on Friday, killing at least 26 people in one of the deadliest road crashes the north-eastern Indian state has recorded.

The toll rose overnight as critically injured passengers died. An executive magistrate in Golaghat district said doctors had confirmed 26 deaths, and a senior doctor at Kohora Model Hospital, where the injured were first taken, also confirmed the rising count. Officials said it could rise further.

Children and women were among the dead, officials said, as was the driver of the bus. About 20 injured people were transferred to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital. Golaghat’s police superintendent said the exact number of people on the bus was not yet known.

The collision happened at Rangajan, near the Hathikuli tea estate, on the NH-715 highway beside Kaziranga National Park, about 225 kilometres east of Dispur, the state capital. The bus was travelling between Golaghat and Nagaon when it met the truck.

What caused it?

Police are investigating. A senior official said the bus was running at very high speed, in breach of the restrictions imposed near the park, and that the driver appears to have lost control. Assam minister Atul Bora said witnesses had reported that the bus was speeding before the crash, and described it as “one of the worst” accidents in Assam’s history.

“Investigation will reveal the cause of the accident,” he said.

The stretch of road matters. The highway through the Kaziranga area runs alongside one of the world’s most important wildlife reserves, home to most of the world’s greater one-horned rhinoceroses, and drivers on it face speed limits meant to protect animals crossing between the park and the hills to the south. Whether the bus was breaking those limits is one of the questions the investigation will have to answer.

Who has responded?

Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said on X that he was “deeply distressed by the tragic accident”. He said the government’s first priority was making sure the injured received the best possible medical care without delay.

India’s Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh, also posted condolences, saying he was deeply anguished by the crash in Kaziranga.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced payments of 200,000 rupees to the family of each person killed and 50,000 rupees to each person injured. Officials had not released the names of the dead by early Saturday, Indian time.

Why are India’s roads so deadly?

India has one of the highest road death rates in the world. Official government figures put deaths on its roads at more than 170,000 a year, which works out at more than 450 people every day. Australia, by comparison, loses about 1,300 people a year on its roads.

Reckless and fast driving, overloaded and ageing vehicles and poorly maintained roads are the factors most often blamed. Head-on crashes on two-lane highways, where buses and heavy trucks share narrow roads with cars, motorbikes and pedestrians, are among the deadliest.

Crashes involving buses regularly kill dozens of people at a time, because the vehicles are often packed well beyond their seating capacity, particularly on regional routes where they are the main way to travel between towns.

What does this mean for travellers?

Kaziranga is one of India’s best-known wildlife destinations and draws international visitors, including Australians, between November and April, when the park is open after the monsoon. There has been no report that any foreign tourists were among the victims.

Australia’s official travel advice for India already warns that road travel there is dangerous, and urges travellers to avoid driving at night and to choose reputable transport operators.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.