A head-on collision between two buses killed 20 passengers and injured at least 18 others in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, police said.
The two buses, which are suspected to have been overcrowded, rammed into each other on a busy road near Gorakhpur, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north east of Lucknow.
"A state transport bus collided with a private bus around 11:30 am, killing 20 people with 18 people admitted to hospital," local police superintendent Ashutosh, who goes by one name, said.
The private bus overturned and fell into a roadside ditch, the domestic UNI news agency said.
India has the highest annual road death toll in the world, according to the World Health Organization, with accidents caused by speeding, careless driving and poor roads.
About 126,000 people, or 345 a day, died on the country's roads in 2010 according to the last statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau.