Nine people died on Friday after a van carrying a group of schoolteachers from Malappuram (a district in the southern Indian state of Kerala) plunged off a cliff at Valparai, a hill station in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. The vehicle, transporting 12 members on an excursion, reportedly fell from one hairpin bend and tumbled several bends down the steep mountain road, killing nine — seven of them women — and injuring the rest. The critically wounded were transferred from Pollachi to a hospital in Coimbatore for advanced care.