Ahmedabad, June 18 -- Eight people, including a minor, were killed and 26 others were injured after a sleeper bus travelling from Rajasthan to Surat rammed into a stationary truck on the Vadodara-Halol National Highway on Wednesday, police said. The incident took place near Kotambi village around 4 am. Police said the truck driver had stopped his vehicle in the outer lane to inspect tyre pressure when the bus struck it from behind. According to superintendent of police (SP) Vadodara (rural) Sushil Agarwal, the stretch is a four-lane highway but only two lanes are operational, leaving little room for vehicles to manoeuvre around a stationary truck in the same lane. "The driver of the truck and his helper have been booked for stopping the vehicle in the middle of the highway, which caused the accident," Agarwal said. All the casualties were from the bus that was ferrying 34 passengers. The truck driver and his helper, who were outside the vehicle, remained unharmed in the collision, he said. "Two of the injured taken to the hospital later succumbed to injuries, taking the death toll to eight," Agarwal said, with the remaining 23 injured undergoing treatment at SSG Hospital and three shifted to private hospitals. Most of the passengers were residents of Banswara in Rajasthan, he said, adding that police were preparing a list of passengers to get in touch with relatives of the victims. The bus driver's cabin bore the brunt of the impact, Agarwal said. "Four or five deaths happened in the cabin itself, because people were sitting in the front," he said, adding that the bus driver was among those killed and that a passenger seated towards the rear sustained a head injury. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force, the fire department and the police mounted a rescue operation through the morning to extract passengers trapped inside the bus, Agarwal said. Arvind Solanki, Sarpanch of Kotambi village, said the accident took place in the early hours of the day and claimed five lives on the spot. "After the accident, a team of NDRF and police came here. There were ten ambulances... ," Solanki said....