A video from Chakrata has gone viral.The dashcam clip does not look real at first. A car moves along a narrow mountain road, reaches a bend and, within moments, veers off the road. It strikes an electricity pole and disappears down the mountainside.But there is no dramatic chase or warning before the vehicle falls. The entire sequence unfolds almost too quickly to process.The video from Uttarakhand’s Chakrata area has gone viral on social media, after a fatal crash on the Chakrata-Tuini motor road near Chillad. According to reports, three people were travelling in the Ford car when it lost control at a sharp turn and plunged about 100 metres into a gorge.
A mountain road, one sharp turn and seconds to react
The crash reportedly took place on October 2, while the dashcam footage surfaced online two days later. The vehicle was carrying three people and had an Uttar Pradesh registration number.The footage shows the car travelling along the mountain road before suddenly becoming unstable. It then hits a roadside electricity pole and falls into the gorge.One person, identified as 39-year-old Durgesh Chaudhary, died in the accident. The other two occupants survived but suffered serious injuries. Rescue teams later reached them inside the gorge.
Why mountain roads can leave almost no room for error
The video is also a reminder of something that can be easy to forget while driving through Uttarakhand’s scenic hill roads: the road may be narrow, while the consequences of a small error can be enormous.Sharp bends, steep gradients, limited visibility and the absence of a wide shoulder can leave drivers with very little recovery space if a vehicle suddenly drifts out of its lane.And the risk is not new on the Chakrata-Tuini route.In November 2021, another crash on the Tiuni-Chakrata road killed 13 people after a vehicle carrying 15 occupants fell around 300 metres into a gorge. Two people survived with injuries.The two incidents are not the same, but they illustrate why driving on mountain roads requires much more than simply slowing down when a road looks dangerous.
