At least nine people were killed when a jeep they were in veered off the road in Argakhachi district in western Nepal on Sunday.

The jeep (Ga. 1 Ja) 4878 could not negotiate a narrow and steep dirt road and fell 700 metres down the road in Hansapur village of Argakhachi district. Details of the accident are yet to come. Police have rescued six people alive.

This is the third major road accident in Nepal over the last two weeks. On Friday, 20 people were killed when a bus skidded off the narrow Narayangadh-Mugling highway and plunged into Trishuli River. One week before that, 27 people were killed when a jam-packed bus overturned in Kavre district.

Over 16,000 people have been killed in road accidents in the last 10 years in Nepal – nearly as many as those killed during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.

Syndicates of transport entrepreneurs guarded by greedy politicians and corrupt bureaucrats are believed to be one of the major reasons behind such a high number of highway fatalities in Nepal. These syndicates do not allow investors to introduce new buses, and run obsolete and overcrowded buses, which often meet with accidents.