Mirzapur (UP): Eleven people, including children, were killed in a multi-vehicle collision triggered by a suspected brake failure in a truck in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district, police said on Thursday.
The accident was reported around 8.30 pm on Wednesday, following which police and fire brigade teams rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation with the help of locals, Mirzapur SP Aparna Rajat Kaushik said.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has condoled the loss of lives in what he termed an “extremely tragic and heart-rending” incident.
Police said the collision occurred on a stretch of National Highway-135 descending from the Dramandganj valley towards Lasoda, about 50 km from the district headquarters.
According to preliminary findings, a truck travelling downhill is suspected to have suffered a brake failure, triggering the accident.
Officials said the truck coming from Madhya Pradesh, which was loaded with chickpeas, lost control on a steep slope and hit a Bolero car and a truck moving ahead of it.
In the chain collision that followed, two cars, including the Bolero, caught fire. The blaze was so intense that it took more than two hours to douse the flames, officials said.
“Police, along with locals, pulled out the victims trapped in the mangled vehicles. So far, 11 deaths have been reported,” the SP said.
Officials said nine occupants of the Bolero, including four children, three women and two men, were charred to death. They were returning after visiting the Maihar temple in Madhya Pradesh.
The drivers of another car and the truck also died, with the latter succumbing on the way to the hospital, they said.
District Magistrate Pawan Gangwar told PTI that seven of those killed were from Mirzapur district, three from Madhya Pradesh, while one was from neighbouring Sonbhadra district.
The deceased from Mirzapur’s Jigna area included Shiva Singh (8), Sonam Singh (9), Piyush Singh (14), Pankaj Singh (40), Vandana Singh (43), Vishnu Singh (45) and Veena Singh (47).
The others who died in the accident included Kartikeya Singh (18) and Priyanka Singh (42) from Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Vikas Sharma (32) from Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, and Jai Prakash (27) from Sonbhadra, the officials said.
Police said the bodies were charred beyond recognition, which made the identification process difficult.
Lalganj Circle Officer Amar Bahadur Singh said it took considerable time to ascertain the identities of the victims and inform their families, who were traced using the registration details of the vehicles.
The vehicles involved in the crash included a truck bearing a Bihar registration number and another registered in Madhya Pradesh. Among the cars, one was from Sonbhadra district and the other from Mirzapur.
In a post on X on Thursday morning, Adityanath said, “The loss of lives in the road accident in Mirzapur is extremely tragic and heart-rending. My condolences are with the bereaved families.”
“Instructions have been issued to the officials concerned to ensure proper treatment for the injured,” he said.
“I pray to Lord Ram that the departed souls attain eternal peace, the grief-stricken families are granted the strength to bear this immense sorrow, and the injured recover swiftly,” the chief minister added.
Uttar Pradesh minister Nand Gopal Gupta, who is in charge of Mirzapur, also mourned the loss of lives and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved families.
“The government stands firmly with the affected families in this hour of grief. Directions have been issued to ensure all possible help to the affected families,” Gupta said.
A detailed probe has been initiated to ascertain the exact cause of the accident, police said.
PTI
