Nine people, including teachers and staff of a Malappuram school, died in a road accident in Tamil Nadu. Their bodies were brought back to Pang village, where grieving students, families, and villagers gathered to pay respects. Four others remain injured. The Kerala government has announced aid, counselling, and a probe into the tragedy.

Malappuram (Kerala): They had begun their journey together in a tempo traveller, bound by friendship and shared moments of joy. They came back, however, in nine ambulances--lifeless, leaving an entire village grappling with an overwhelming sense of loss.

The premises of a state-run school in Pang village here turned into a place of collective mourning on Saturday as the bodies of 9 people--teachers, non-teaching staff and their relatives associated with the Palliparamba Government Lower Primary School--were brought back following a fatal road accident in neighbouring Tamil Nadu on Friday.

The convoy of ambulances, which left Pollachi after postmortem procedures that concluded in the early hours, reached the Ambalaparambu government higher secondary school in the morning.

The bodies were placed one after another in the school compound for the public to pay their last respects.