Eighteen people were killed on the spot and 14 injured, six of them seriously, when a private night service bus skidded off the road and rolled down about 1,000 feet near Raga in Lower Subansiri district in Arunachal Pradesh, official reports said on Thursday.

The tragedy occurred at about 2230 IST on Wednesday night when the bus, on its way from Daparjio headquarters of Upper Subansiri district to Lakhimpur in Assam, skidded off the road while negotiating a bend on a mountain road. The bus broke into pieces after the fall.

The Lower Subansiri deputy commissioner and superintendent of police immediately rushed to the spot, about 300 kms from Itanagar, to supervise rescue operations.

The seriously injured have been shifted to district hospital at Ziro, headquarters of Lower Subansiri district and at North Lakhimpur in Assam, the spokesman said.