At least three persons died and eight were injured when a vehicle carrying pilgrims plunged into the Alaknanda river in Uttarakhand on Thursday, reported ANI.

Nine others are reportedly missing.

The vehicle, which had 20 people, including the driver, on board, met with the accident near Gholthir village on Badrinath National Highway, located between the Rudraprayag and Gauchar districts.

District Information Officer Rati Lal Shah told the Hindustan Times that the vehicle lost control before falling into the river below.

Earlier in the day, Satyendra Singh Bhandari, a member of the Red Cross Society rescue team, told PTI that two bodies had been recovered. One was found near the crash site and another from the river near Rudraprayag.

State Disaster Response Force Inspector Manjari Negi later said that a third body was found floating near a dam in Srinagar, ANI reported.

Rescue and relief operations are underway.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that three of the injured pilgrims were sent to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh on a helicopter ambulance. Teams of the State Disaster Response Force and the water police are searching for the missing persons, and are also engaged in rescue and relief operations, he said.

The vehicle was on its way to Badrinath Dham when the accident took place around 7.30 am, the news agency reported. The pilgrims were on Uttarakhand's Char Dham Yatra and had come from Udaipur, Rajasthan.