At least 26 people have been killed and 12 injured in a passenger-bus accident in a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, officials say.
Muhammad Wakeel, a police spokesman in the town of Diamer in the semiautonomous Gilgit-Baltistan region, told RFE/RL that the bus driver had lost control of the vehicle.
A local journalist, Sher Ghazi, reported that some officials were blaming failed brakes while others thought the driver fell asleep behind the wheel.
The bus was reportedly headed from the northern town of Skardu to Rawalpindi, in Punjab.
Gilgit-Baltistan is a mountainous region with narrow roads that are only open for traffic between May and October and are blocked by heavy snowfall during the long winters.
Pakistan has a poor road-safety record that is mostly blamed on bad roads, reckless driving, and faulty, aging vehicles.
