23 migrants killed, 20 injured after two trucks collide in Uttar Pradesh

In a gruesome incident, 23 migrant workers were killed and 20 seriously injured in a collision between the truck they were traveling in collided with another truck in Aurraiyya district, early on Saturday morning.

The incident took place on the national highway at Mihauli under Kotwali police circle when the trolley rammed into a stationary mini-truck.

“The incident took place at around 3:30 am. Twenty-three people have died. Most of them are from the state of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal and were coming from Delhi,” Abhishek Singh, the District magistrate of Auraiya, 230 km south-west of Lucknow said.

Around 20 people have been injured in the accident which took place at Auriya when a truck hit the stationary mini truck. The vehicles were carrying around 70 people.

The DM said the mini-truck was standing near a dhaba when the truck hit it after ts driver lost control over the wheel. The local villagers were the first to reach the accident site and started rescue. “The injured have been rushed to the hospital where the condition of several people is said to be critical,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people have been walking home from big cities after being laid off because of the lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) since late March. Some of them have hired trucks, or tempos to carry them home.

Indian government has started trains to bring the migrant labourers from states like Maharashtra and Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar but thousands of migrant workers continue to seek rides on trucks, cycle, or just walk on the country’s highways in a struggle to return home. Some of the workers do not have the documentation required to travel.

In last one week, around 100 migrant workers have been killed across India in accidents when the vehicles they are traveling in met with an accident. On May 8 at least 16 workers who were sleeping on rail track were run over by a goods train and early this week 15 migrant workers were killed in three different accidents. On May 9, five workers were killed in Madhya Pradesh when the truck in which they were traveling hit the central verge of the road.

with IANS inputs