Tributes have been paid to a young British hiker who was among 19 people killed when a packed passenger bus veered off a treacherous stretch of road and plunged 200 metres down a steep mountainside in Nepal.

Twenty-five others were injured in the pre-dawn crash in the Himalayan foothills on Monday. The bus was carrying 44 people, including a number of tourists.

Dominic Ethan Stewart’s family said he was a “very loving and caring young man who was happiest trekking”. Stewart would have turned 24 next month, ITV reported.

Stewart, from Exeter, was an enthusiastic hiker who had just completed the Annapurna Circuit, a gruelling high-altitude trek in the Himalayas.

A Foreign Office statement said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Nepal and are in contact with local authorities.”

BBC Nepali reported that 17 of the victims died at the scene, while two more died in hospital.

The dead also included a 40-year-old Chinese woman and a 32-year-old man from India. A 27-year-old New Zealand woman and a 12-year-old Chinese child were among the injured.

The bus was travelling overnight from the popular lakeside tourist city of Pokhara to the capital, Kathmandu, when it veered off the road at Behighat in Dhading district, 50 miles (80km) west of the city. The passenger bus “went out of control”, police spokesperson Prakash Dahal said.

The bus hurtled down the steep slope and landed on its side on the banks of the Trishuli River. The vehicle’s frame was a mangled wreck and its windows were shattered.

Rescuers worked through the night to reach trapped survivors but their efforts were hampered by a lack of equipment and the remote location.

Police superintendent Sumit Khadka told Nepal’s state news agency RSS: “We did not have any equipment that could immediately lift or cut (through the metal). We spent a long time consoling the victims.”

Nepal’s home ministry has set up a five-member taskforce to investigate the accident.

The crash occurred on a narrow stretch of road notorious for its vertiginous drops, deep valleys and tight bends.

Last year, during the monsoon, a landslide swept two passenger buses carrying more than 50 people into the same river. Three survivors were reported to have swum to safety.

Vehicle accidents are frequent on Nepal’s twisting mountain roads, which are often poorly maintained. Overcrowded buses, ageing vehicles and lax enforcement of road safety rules compound the dangers.