At least 20 people, half of them children and women, burnt to death on Thursday when a passenger bus fell into a ravine and caught fire near Rohri, police said. The bus skidded off the road and plunged into the ravine near Rohri as the driver was trying to avoid a head-on collision with a car.

"The bus caught fire when it hit the ground. So far, 20 bodies have been recovered," police official Khalid Raza said. He said rescuers had to cut through the twisted wreckage of the bus to remove dead bodies and injured persons. The dead included five children and as many women.

Copyright Reuters, 2006