The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jodhpur

Rescuers in India recovered the bodies of 85 pilgrims Saturday from the mangled wreckage of a truck that plunged into a ravine in one of the country's worst-ever vehicle accidents, police said.

Some 200 people were crowded on the truck travelling to a religious fair in the desert state of Rajasthan in western India. Apart from the deaths, some 61 people were in three hospitals, many of them seriously injured, police said.

"People have been taken out of the gorge," said police superintendent Rupinder Singh in Rajsamand district, where the accident occurred after dark on Friday. "Eighty-five bodies have been recovered."

A large number of the dead were women, said police, adding that about 50 remaining passengers were believed to have survived unhurt or with minor injuries. A witness told AFP that a crowd of motorcyclists jammed the road by the ravine where the truck fell, and piercing screams and cries could be heard as survivors called for help.

"I stopped the car and saw a truck lying upside down in the ravine," said Udaipur district official Shikhar Agarwal, who was driving by half an hour after the accident

"The wireless phone was not working so we could not even call for help from there. We started sending people to hospital in private cars."

Passersby also alerted the nearest police post

About 10 cranes were brought to the accident site overnight as rescuers using searchlights scrambled to find survivors and recover bodies.

After dawn Saturday the police operation had been scaled back to recover the badly damaged truck as survivors searched for scatered belongings. The truck driver lost control on a sharp bend in a mountainous region and smashed through a protective roadside wall, plunging into the 80-foot (25-metre) deep gorge, said police official Singh.

Anxious villagers thronged hospitals where the injured had been taken.

"We knew the truck driver who was going and he told us to come too. So 54 of us went with him," said 25-year-old Manji Lal, as he lay in a bed with a bandaged foot in Rajsamand's main hospital during the night

"It all happened so suddenly we had no idea where our family members ended up. People were screaming for a long time until someone came and rescued us."

Television channels showed the patients atached to intravenous drips, including one boy in a blue shirt with a thick bandage around his head.

"Suddenly the brakes failed," the boy told the Aaj Tak channel.

Some villagers had already taken the bodies of their family members back home to perform last rites Saturday, while others were still trying to identify the dead.

At least three people were so badly mutilated that their bodies could not be identified, police said.

Rajasthan's home minister has asked district officials to investigate how the 10-wheel truck -- meant for hauling cars and heavy equipment -- was allowed to transport people.

"We are doing an enquiry into how so many people were travelling like this," said Gulab Chand Kataria.