Fifteen persons were killed and 40 others injured after an Uttar Pradesh-bound private bus, mostly carrying labourers going home for Diwali, rammed into a trailer-truck from behind in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh, officials said on Saturday. The accident occurred around 11.30 pm on Friday near Teonthar town, when the bus was going to Gorakhpur from Hyderabad, they said.

The bus, a sleeper coach, was negotiating a mountain road in Sohagi ghati, about 60 km from the district headquarters, when it rammed into the trailer-truck on national highway-30, Rewa Superintendent of Police (SP) Navneet Bhasin said. The impact of the crash was so severe that the bodies of the bus driver and conductor had to be pulled out with the help of gas cutters, Bhasin said.