At least 5 migrants have died while over 2 dozens injured after a truck carrying migrants overturned near Simra flyover on Sagar-Kanpur highway, in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh. Meanwhile, the police have reached the spot and concerned authorities are taking stock of the situation. The migrants were travelling from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh, ASP Praveen Bhuria informed.
Earlier in the day, 24 migrant workers were killed and 36 injured when a trailer rammed into a stationary truck, both carrying passengers, on a highway near Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh in the early hours of Saturday.
Some of the workers coming from Delhi had stopped for tea when the accident occurred between 3 am and 3.30 am on the Auraiya-Kanpur Dehat stretch of National Highway 19, police said.
The impact of the collision, the latest in a series of road tragedies involving migrant workers returning to their villages, was so huge that both vehicles overturned and fell into a ditch.
Most of those killed were from Jharkhand and West Bengal, and some from Kushinagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh, officials said.
While the stationary vehicle was coming from Delhi and was headed towards Madhya Pradesh, the other was coming from Rajasthan, both ferrying people who found themselves without jobs, money or food during the lockdown and were desperate to get back home.
"The accident took place when some labourers travelling on the truck (coming from Delhi) halted on the Auraiya-Kanpur Dehat Road to have tea at a local shop. At this point of time, a truck coming from Rajasthan hit the stationary vehicle,” Inspector General, Kanpur, Mohit Agarwal told PTI over the phone.
Of the 36 injured, 14 have serious injuries and have been admitted to a hospital in Saifai (in Etawah district) while 22 have been hospitalised in Auraiya, about 400 km from New Delhi and 200 km from the state capital Lucknow, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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