As many as 10 persons, including four women, lost their lives after an SUV by which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck on NH-35 near Silada in Nuapada district late on Tuesday night.
The tragedy took place at around 2 am when a group of ten artists hailing from Chhattisgarh were returning from Komna in Nuapada district after performing Bhajan at the Vaishno Devi temple on the occasion of Durga Puja.
The ill-fated car and the speeding truck collided leaving all the ten persons dead on the spot.
The impact of the accident was so severe that the SUV got severely mangled. The driver of the truck fled the spot after the incident.
The deceased were identified as Mukesh Agarwal, Meghnad Nishad, Surjit Singh Jabda, Dinesh Dandasena, Chandini Dandasena, Bharti Dandasena, Meena Pareswar, Dileswari Netam, Dharmen Netam and Dhananjaya Dandasena.
Police and Fire Services personnel reached the spot and recovered the bodies from the damaged vehicle. The bodies were sent to the Nuapada District Headquarters Hospital for postmortem.