Fog triggers highway crash, fire; 13 killed

Thirteen people died of burns and 35 sustained injuries when a vehicle pile-up caused by dense fog on the Yamuna Expressway here early Tuesday turned into an inferno, according to police. Eight buses and three smaller vehicles collided with each other in the thick fog around 4.30 am, the officer said. The incident occurred under the Baldev Police Station jurisdiction.

“The vehicles collided due to low visibility on the Agra-to-Noida side of the Yamuna Expressway. Some vehicles also caught fire. All injured have been sent to the hospital,” Mathura Senior Superintendent of Police Shlok Kumar said. All 13 died of burns.

Of the injured, fifteen were admitted to the district hospital, nine each to a community health centre and a private hospital in Baldev, and two to SN Medical College, Agra, Sachan said.

President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the loss of lives in a road accident in Uttar Pradesh is extremely heartbreaking and prayed for the swift recovery of all those who have been injured.

“The news of the death of several people in a road accident in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, is extremely heartbreaking. I express my deepest condolences to all the bereaved families and pray for the swift recovery of all those who have been injured,” Murmu said in a social media post.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his condolences to the kin of the deceased. “The loss of life in the road accident on the Yamuna Expressway in Mathura district is extremely tragic and heartbreaking. My deepest condolences are with the bereaved families,” he said.

Visuals from the spot revealed charred buses and cars, reduced to mere mangled shells. Cranes were called in to remove them from the road. “We are preserving the DNA of charred bodies to match them with the information provided by their relatives,” Kumar said. CM office announced Rs 2 lakh each to the kin of the deceased, and Rs 50,000 each to the injured.