At least 18 people were killed when a van skidded off a road and fell into a stream in India's northern Jammu and Kashmir state on Tuesday, officials and reports said. The van carrying 32 passengers, mostly students, plunged into stream while negotiating a curve in the western Poonch district, the PTI news agency reported. But district officials said only nine bodies had been recovered so far from the scene located 180 kilometres north-west of the state's winter capital Jammu as the army and the local agencies were carrying out rescue work. They said eight passengers who suffered injuries in the crash were taken to a local hospital, but there was no word on the 15 others missing. -- SPA
