Nine people of a family, including three children and three women, died on Monday (August 10, 2026) in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district, when a van in which they were travelling was swept away amid a flood-like situation following incessant rains overnight, officials said.

There were 11 passengers in the car, and two people have been rescued safely, Sarangpur Sub-Divisional Officer, Police, Arvind Singh told The Hindu.

The incident took place around 9 a.m., when the van was trying to cross a small bridge over a high-flowing drain near a bypass in Padana village under Sarangpur tehsil, according to the police. A purported video from the scene shows two locals rescuing one of the passengers using a rope amid neck-deep water.

The victims are residents of Dewas district’s Satwas. Barring the driver, everyone in the van belonged to the same family. They were travelling to a religious shrine in Rajgarh’s Kadlawad.

The van driver, identified as Mukesh Parmar, survived the tragedy. Mr. Parmar owns the car that had been rented by the family. The car was brought out with the help of a crane, Mr. Singh said.

“Locals reported that water was flowing over the bridge and the driver had been strongly advised against attempting to cross it. Despite this, he drove negligently, and the vehicle plunged off the bridge,” Sarangpur Sub-Divisional Magistrate Rohit Bamhore said.

Financial aid of ₹4 lakh to the next of kin of each of the deceased has been announced by the administration, he said.

About 45 villages across the tehsil are facing a flood-like situation, and urban areas are dealing with severe water-logging, prompting rescue efforts across areas that witnessed a sudden rise in water levels.

“The area has received cloudburst-like rain since around midnight [of Sunday, August 9, 2026] and the situation turned bad very quickly in several villages. About 40-45 villages faced flood-like water-logging overnight. The administration and the police have been running rescue efforts since early morning to bring people to safety,” Mr. Singh said.

“When we were in [the middle of] rescue efforts elsewhere in the morning, we received information from Padana about the van. The rescue teams reached the spot soon and all nine bodies were recovered by afternoon. The van was pulled out using a crane,” Mr. Singh said, adding that teams from the State Disaster Emergency Response Force and the Home Guard were also involved in the efforts.

The police are conducting a preliminary investigation, and legal action will be taken against the driver if negligence is found on his part. Post-mortem examinations have been conducted on the bodies, he said.

“He [the driver] was rescued from the water as he may have jumped early after realising the situation. We are considering action against him but, right now, our priority is to dispatch the bodies home,” Mr. Singh said.

Published - August 10, 2026 07:51 pm IST