AURAIYA (UP): At least 25 migrants were killed and 40 others injured when a trailer and a stationary truck on which they had hitched rides collided on a highway near here in the early hours of Saturday, the latest in a string of accidents involving workers returning to their native states amid the coronavirus lockdown.
Most of the victims were sitting on sacks of lime powder loaded on the trailer, and were crushed when the vehicles overturned and fell into a ditch following the crash near an eatery between 3 am and 3.30 am on the Auraiya-Kanpur Dehat stretch of National Highway 19, police said.
While many of the workers were from Jharkhand and West Bengal, some were from Kushinagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh, they said.
“In the accident, most of the labourers were crushed under these bags, which were on the trailer, and died. Some of them succumbed to injuries on the way to hospital,” District Magistrate Abhishek Singh said, adding all the deceased were men.
The truck, which was going from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh, had stopped at the eatery as some workers wanted to have tea.
It was carrying around 22 people, including five women and seven children, officials said.
The trailer with 43 migrants was coming from Rajasthan, they said. Both the vehicles were ferrying people who found themselves without jobs, money or food during the lockdown and were desperate to get back home.
While 25 people have died, 15 seriously injured have been admitted to a hospital in Saifai in Etawah district.
The rest have been hospitalised in Auraiya, about 400 km from New Delhi and 200 km from the state capital, the officials said.
The PMO said an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the next of kin of those who lost their lives due to the unfortunate accident has been approved from the PM’s National Relief Fund, while Rs 50,000 each for the injured has also been approved.
The state government too announced similar assistance to the victims.
The opposition Congress and Samajwadi Party hit out at the BJP government, saying it was not an accident but a “murder”, and asked why it was not making adequate arrangements for the migrant labourers.
The SHOs of two police stations have been suspended, and a stern warning has been issued to the circle officers, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said .
The state government also directed the district magistrates in border districts to strictly comply with the order on providing buses to migrants.
Local villagers assisted the police and the administration in the rescue operation as JCB machines were used to pull out the people from under the lime sacks. The badly mangled vehicles showed the intensity of the crash. (PTI)
