The death toll in the road accident in India's Assam has risen to 26, with 24 victims identified and two still unidentified, officials said on Saturday.
The accident took place on Friday, when a passenger vehicle and a container truck collided head-on in the Rongajaan area of Golaghat district, near Kaziranga National Park, police said.
Additional District Commissioner of Golaghat Jintu Bora said Jorhat Medical College had just sent another update raising the toll. "the total number of deaths has now reached 26," he told ANI.
Three teams are conducting post-mortems. One team each has arrived from Guwahati Medical College and Jorhat Medical College and 11 doctors are currently engaged in the work.
On Friday, Additional District Commissioner of Golaghat, Jintu Bora, had put the toll at 25, including 14 women and 11 men, with 23 identified. Nineteen injured people had initially been sent to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital, and two of them later died. One person at the hospital was yet to be identified.
He shared details about the identified victims, saying that nine deceased were from Nagaon district, while one was from Karbi Anglong district and another was from Bihar.
Providing details of the victim from Bihar, Bora identified him as Mohammad Rafiq Ali, son of Sami Ahmed, aged 38, whose address was listed as Tufanpur in Madhubani district.
The district administration has arranged vehicles to take the bodies to their hometowns "in a dignified manner." It is also coordinating identification and post-mortems and assisting the affected families.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma expressed deep grief over the accident in a post on X. "The scale of this loss has shaken all of us, and my heart goes out to every family that has lost a loved one," he wrote. "All of Assam stands with them in this hour of grief."