Dense fog continued to play havoc claiming half-a-dozen more lives and leaving several injured in separate mishaps reported on Tuesday.
In Basti, an SUV (XUV) rammed into a wall due to poor visibility, thanks to dense fog. Three persons were killed while four were injured. The mishap occurred on Basti-Lucknow highway in the wee hours of Tuesday. All the deceased were employees of a finance company in Gorakhpur.
Reports said that seven people working in a finance company in Gorakhpur were going to Lucknow by an SUV to attend a meeting. The driver lost control of the vehicle due to dense fog near Garha Gautam on the highway in the Kaptanganj police station area of Basti. The vehicle rammed into the road divider and later ploughed into the wall of a roadside dhaba. The Kaptanganj police took out the injured with the help of dhaba workers. Among them, Dheeraj Singh (30), who was a resident of Sangam Vihar Colony in Lucknow, had already died by then. He was a native of Buxar in Bihar.
Two other injured, Sonu Chaudhary (27) of Jamunivarma police station area in Kushinagar and Dilip Kumar (32) of Dehandul police station area of Baresar in Ghazipur district, died on the way to a hospital. Others were undergoing treatment at the district hospital. However, the driver of the ill-fated SUV fled the spot.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed officials concerned to arrange for better treatment of the injured and also expressed grief over the deaths. A case has been registered and the bodies sent for autopsy.
Meanwhile in Bulandshahr, nearly 40 vehicles were involved in an accident due to poor visibility caused by dense fog. Two persons died while over a dozen were injured.
Images showed a number of piled-up, debris-laden trucks and cars on the road, some with substantial damage and pieces of broken glass everywhere.
The mishap occurred on the Dussehra flyover in Arnia. Police sent the injured to nearby hospitals. According to authorities, one of the victims was a truck driver. His body was sent for autopsy.
Meanwhile, a school teacher died in another mishap in Budaun on Tuesday morning. Reports said that Pradeep Kumar (33), who was a resident of Shivsingh hamlet, was an assistant teacher in a primary school at Pipariya under Wazirgarj block in Budaun. He was going to Etah when some unidentified speeding vehicle knocked him down in dense fog. Police rushed him to the Bareilly Medical College where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.