Mumbai: Fourteen people were killed and 36 injured when a private bus collided with a tanker on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway near Dahanu in Thane district.
Officials at the Thane Disaster Control Room told Gulf News that eight men, five women and a minor boy died in the accident at around 7am on Wednesday on the highway at Kasa, some 120 kilometres from Mumbai. The 36 injured passengers include 27 women, six girls and three boys.
The injured have been shifted to Thane Civil Hospital, Sion Hospital and Bhagwati Hospital in Malad in Mumbai while the bodies were taken to Kasa Hospital for identification.
The bus headed to Mumbai was carrying over 60 passengers when the tanker containing non-combustible chemicals jumped the divider and hit the bus. The drivers of both vehicles died on the spot.
Resident Deputy Collector Manoj Gohad said rescue operations were launched immediately. “The disaster management machinery has been pressed into service and medical teams have been dispatched to the accident site,” he said.
Road accidents occur almost on a daily basis on Maharashtra’s roads which continue to be the most unsafe in the country, according to a central government report. The state accounts for 13.8 per cent of road accidents in India even as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka account for over 50 per cent fatalities in road accidents.
In 2011, about 147,000 people were killed in 121,000 road accidents across the country, of which 12,500 deaths occurred in Maharashtra. It is possible the figure has risen since then.
In most instances, drivers are to blame since they resort to speeding, violate traffic rules and drive under the influence of alcohol.
