At least 18 people were killed in eastern India on Tuesday after a bus ferrying Hindu pilgrims collided with a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders, officials said. Visuals from the site in Jharkhand state showed the mangled wreckage of the bus, with its rear portion almost entirely burnt.

In June, a sudden crowd surge at a Hindu festival in the coastal state of Odisha triggered a stampede that killed at least three people and injured several others. The previous month saw six people crushed to death in the western state of Goa after thousands gathered for a popular fire-walking ritual.