At least 30 passengers were injured, three of them critically, when a private bus overturned near the hilly township of Rajapuram, some 25 km east of Kanhangad, on Wednesday.

The accident occurred around 11.50 a.m. as the driver of the bus, plying on the Kanhangad-Panthur route, lost control of the vehicle after the steering-rod broke as the vehicle was about to negotiate a sharp curve near the Tagore English medium school, the police said.

While three of the injured were rushed to a Mangaluru hospital with critical injuries, the remaining were undergoing treatment at the district hospital and a private hospital at Kanhangad, they said.

Efforts were on to collect details of the injured.