At least 16 wedding guests killed in Indian highway crash

NEW DELHI, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - At least 16 wedding guests were killed and five others injured in a road traffic accident in the southern Indian state of Karnataka early on Thursday, the Press Trust of India said.

The driver of a minibus, carrying 20 passengers to a wedding ceremony, apparently lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree.

Fourteen people died at the scene and two others in hospital. Seven women and two children were among the dead, IANS said.

The death toll could rise as four people are reported to be in a critical condition.

Accidents involving wedding parties are frequent in India, where guests usually travel in crowded vehicles or boats.

In June 2008, some 20 people returning home from a wedding reception were killed in eastern India after the vehicle carrying them crashed into a roadside canal. On May 4, 16 people, mostly women and children heading to a wedding reception, were killed when their vehicle crashed into a truck on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the eastern part of the country.

Some 24 people returning home from a wedding reception were killed when the pick-up truck they were travelling in rammed into a truck in the northwestern state of Rajasthan on April 24.

Several hours before the fatal accident, a boat carrying guests to a wedding capsized in western India, killing 21.