Two persons died and 24 were injured after a bus carrying Vaishno Devi pilgrims overturned on the Jammu-Pathankot Highway in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, PTI reported.

An unidentified police official said the accident took place when the Amritsar-bound bus crashed into a divider and overturned near the Dayala checkpost. All the pilgrims hailed from Gujarat and were returning after visiting the shrine.

The officer said that rescue teams reached the site after they were informed and shifted the wounded to a district hospital in Kathua. Eighteen of them were referred to the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu, where two of them were declared dead on arrival. A few of the injured were in a critical state.

The officer added that the dead persons were yet to be identified.

Six children and a bus driver were killed when their vehicle fell into a gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district on January 5.