Coimbatore, Aug 2 (IANS) Five people, including three women, were killed on the spot after the car in which they were travelling rammed into the rear of a stationary lorry on the Pollachi-Udumalai National Highway near Nallampalli in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district on Sunday, police officials said.
The accident occurred on Sunday afternoon when the car was proceeding from Udumalai towards Pollachi.
Preliminary information indicated that the lorry had been stationed along the highway while workers were engaged in watering plants on the roadside.
Police said the car, which was reportedly travelling at high speed, crashed into the rear of the lorry.
The impact was so severe that the front portion of the car was completely crushed, trapping all five occupants inside the mangled vehicle.
Three women and two men travelling in the car died on the spot.
Motorists and local residents alerted the police and emergency services following the accident.
Rescue personnel rushed to the site and retrieved the victims from the wreckage.
The bodies were subsequently sent to a government hospital for post-mortem examination.
The accident caused disruption to traffic along the busy highway as police and rescue personnel carried out recovery operations and removed the damaged vehicles.
Police have registered a case and launched an investigation to establish the exact circumstances that led to the collision, including whether speeding or positioning of the stationary lorry contributed to the accident.
Sunday’s tragedy comes amid a series of fatal road accidents reported across Tamil Nadu in recent weeks.
On July 24, six people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in two separate accidents in Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts.
In one of the incidents, three employees of a private company were killed when their car crossed the median and collided with a lorry near Keelambi on the Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway.
Earlier, on July 18, three people were killed and five others injured when a car carrying eight people rammed into a tanker lorry near Chengapalli on the Salem-Coimbatore National Highway in Tiruppur district.
On July 13, six people were killed and 41 others injured after an omni bus and a government bus collided near Vanchinagaram on the Tiruchy-Madurai National Highway.
The latest tragedy has once again brought attention to road safety, speeding and the dangers posed by stationary vehicles along high-speed highway corridors.
–IANS
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