Overcrowded bus plunges into ravine in southwest Pakistan, killing 40 passengers

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A speeding, overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine in southwestern Pakistan early Friday, killing 40 people and injuring eight others in one of the deadliest road accidents in recent years, officials said.

The bus went out of control and fell into the ravine in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, Shahid Rind, a spokesperson for the Balochistan government, said.

He said the bus was carrying not only its own passengers but also those from another bus that had broken down, leaving the vehicle overcrowded. Rind said rescuers were working to identify those killed in the crash.

One of the injured survivors told local media from his hospital bed that some passengers protested after the driver stopped to pick up people from the other bus. He said an argument followed, during which one passenger allegedly grabbed the driver by the neck. Moments later, the driver lost control of the bus, which fell into the ravine.

The account could not be independently verified and police said they were investigating.

News of the crash triggered a wave of grief across Pakistan as relatives frantically called emergency services, hospitals and local police seeking information about their loved ones.

Reaching the wreckage proved difficult as emergency workers, backed by paramilitary forces, climbed down a steep mountainside to the ravine up to 25 meters (80 feet) deep. Several hours later, rescuers carried the injured on stretchers and recovered the dead in makeshift carts, painstakingly hauling them back up the rugged slope, official Noor Zaman said.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, Nasir Khan said his brother last night had called from Quetta to say he was on his way home on the bus that crashed early Friday. When he failed to arrive as expected, the family feared the worst. Khan said he had been desperately trying to reach authorities for information about his brother’s fate.

A regional government administrator, Hazrat Wali Kakar, said rescuers transported the injured and dead to nearby hospitals. Most of the casualties were identified through documents but three bodies remained unidentified. he said.

Rescue officials said the bus was carrying 48 passengers when it crashed.

President Asif Ali Zardari expressed sorrow over the crash and offered condolences to the victims' families.

Road accidents are common in Pakistan because of poor road conditions, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws and unsafe driving practices, particularly in mountainous areas. In May, a minibus rammed into a bus parked along a motorway in northwest Pakistan, killing 17 people and injuring five others.

Khan reported from Peshawar. Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

In this photo released by Balochistan Emergency Services Department, soldiers and volunteers take part in a rescue work at the site of an overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine, in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in southwestern Pakistan, Friday, July 3, 2026. (Balochistan Emergency Services Department via AP)

Soldiers and volunteers transport a body after recovering him as an overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine, in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in southwestern Pakistan, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Zain Ullah)

Rescue workers and volunteers transport an inured victim at a hospital after an overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine, in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in southwestern Pakistan, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Zain Ullah)

Rescue workers and volunteers cover bodies after recovering them after an overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine, in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in southwestern Pakistan, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Zain Ullah)

Rescue workers and volunteers cover bodies after recovering them after an overcrowded passenger bus plunged from a highway into a rocky ravine, in Dana Sar, a remote area near the border of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, in southwestern Pakistan, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Zain Ullah)

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law is set to be executed Tuesday, continuing the state's aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ' final term.

William Frances Silvia, 61, would be the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September and has carried out more than half of the nation's 22 executions so far in 2026.

Silvia is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. local time.

A final appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.

According to court records, Silvia purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard’s Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living since their separation two months earlier. The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women.

William Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. A court later vacated that sentence following an appeal related to Florida's death penalty sentencing procedures, but after being granted a new death penalty phase in 2018, he was again sentenced to death.

A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to death row inmates. Silvia's attorneys have argued that the agency couldn't provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another death row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

Two more executions are planned in Florida next month. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on Sept. 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.

Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends.

Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man that he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

FILE - Law enforcement vehicles sit parked outside the Florida state prison in Starke, Fla., on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/David Fischer, file)