In a tragic accident, five people, including two children, were killed on the road in Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Monday. The incident took place near Narasaraopet centre on the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway 65 when a sports utility vehicle (SUV) rammed into a stationary lorry.
The police said that the passengers in the car were heading back to their native village of Sabbivaripalem in West Godavari district after a religious visit to Tirupati.
Six others were injured in the accident and shifted to Guntur's Government General Hospital (GGH).
According to media reports, the deceased were identified as a couple, Venkateswara Rao and Bhavani and their two children; Sonakshi and Getheswar, besides a friend, Karthik Reddy. The bodies had to be pulled out from the mangled remains of the vehicle.
“Preliminary investigation points out that the accident could have been caused by over speeding by the driver of the SUV. The driver of the lorry had just parked his vehicle on the left margin to have a cup of tea. We have noticed that the car was travelling with a speed of 140 km/hour,” Narsaraopet Police Sub Divisional Officer D Rama Varma told The Hindu after visiting the accident spot.
District Collector Samuel Anand Kumar also took note of the incident and offered his condolences to the family, adding that immediate steps would be taken to improve road safety in the area.
In May this year, as many as 15 people were killed and three others injured when a speeding bus crashed into a multi-utility vehicle (MUV) on the Hyderabad-Bengaluru national highway near Veldurthi in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.
The bus, belonging to SRS Travels, was on its way from Hyderabad to Bengaluru, collided with the vehicle coming from the opposite direction.
According to the police, to save a two-wheeler rider, the bus driver hit the road divider and crashed into the MUV in the opposite lane. The victims hailed from the Jogulamba Gadwal district of Telangana and were returning to their village after attending an engagement ceremony.