At least seven people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents that took place on Agra- Lucknow Expressway amid dense fog causing near-zero visibility, police said on Monday.
According to the police, in the first incident, three passengers were killed and at least 18 others were injured after a bus on its way to Sultanpur from Delhi hit a truck and fell in an about 20 feet deep ditch near Thathia in Kannauj.
In another incident, four passengers were killed, and at least 10 injured when their bus rammed into a truck on the expressway near Auras in Unnao district, police said.
"Two women and a child were killed and 18 injured when the bus overturned after hitting the truck and went down the ditch. All the injured were admitted to the Kannauj medical college hospital in Tirva," Station House Officer Thathia, Kamal Bhatia, said.
The deceased were identified as Anita Bajpai (50), Sanjana (25) and Devansh (10), all of Rae Bareli.
“Six members of our family were coming to Rae Bareli from Delhi,” said a family member of the victim. “I came to know that six members of our family met with an accident in which three members died,” he added.
In the Unnao accident, a Nepal-bound bus rammed into a truck on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway as a dense fog covered the area on Monday. The driver and three Nepalese citizens died in the mishap, officials said.
Six other passengers, four of them from Nepal, were injured and were hospitalised.
Additional Superintendent of Police Shashi Shekhar Singh said the bus carrying 60 passengers was going from Rajkot in Gujarat to Nepal. The accident occurred in the Auras area of Unnao. A blinding fog cover engulfed a large part of the state this morning, lowering the visibility considerably. The bus hit the truck from behind on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway around 5:30 am, Singh said.
He added three male passengers of the bus died on the spot, while one woman succumbed to her injuries on the way to the hospital.
Hasanganj Sub-Divisional Magistrate Ankit Shukla said the deceased were identified as Chandra Saud (50), Lalit Saud (35) and Nirmala (25), all of Kailali district of Nepal. The fourth deceased is Sajid, the bus driver.
The injured included Ibrar (25) of Bahraich, Punbhaben (39) of Ahmedabad, Gujarat; Janki (30) and Amar (35), both residents of Kanchanpur in Nepal; Deepak (30), a resident of Kailali in Nepal; and Dhansara (50), also from Nepal.
Around 40 passengers with minor injuries were lodged in a local marriage hall after being given first-aid at the local community health centre.
The bodies were sent for post-mortem, police said.
District Magistrate Apoorva Dubey, who reached the accident site, said a team of doctors were treating the injured and coordinating with authorities in Lucknow.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed the district magistrate and senior police officers to ensure adequate medical assistance to the injured. He also expressed grief at the deaths of the passengers in the mishaps.
Meanwhile, four more people were killed in separate mishaps. In Jhansi, a truck loaded with goods went out of control and fell down from the overbridge. Three people, including the truck driver, were injured in the accident. The driver was taken to the medical college hospital in a critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.
In Barabanki, a car and a motorcycle collided head-on on Kisan Path in Kursi police station area. The motorcycle rider died on the spot while the car driver was injured and was admitted to hospital.
In Azamgarh, Pancham (16) of Jamua Hariram village under Mubarakpur police station went to Keshavpur forest on Sunday morning to collect wood. He was returning home with dry wood when a four-wheeler coming from Gorakhpur hit him. He was seriously injured. The relatives rushed him to hospital where the doctors pronounced him dead.
Pancham was a student of class XII in Maulana Azad Inter College. He was the youngest of five brothers and four sisters.
In Agra, a speeding car fell into Rohta canal near Agra police station at Malpura New Southern Bypass. Ranjit (26), an employee in the CDO office, along with two others, was going in a car when it fell into a canal. While Rohit died on the spot, two others were seriously injured.
In Hapur, a bus carrying schoolchildren collided with a truck on Monday morning. About six students traveling in the bus were injured in the head-on collision. The condition of the bus driver was said to be serious. The reason for the accident is believed to be the negligence of the bus driver.