3 killed, 5 seriously injured after bus-truck collision

Kolkata: Three persons were killed and 15 others injured, five of them seriously, following a collision between a bus and a truck carrying vegetables on the Digha-Nandakumar Road (116 B National Highway) on Friday early morning.

The injured persons have been admitted to Tamluk district hospital. The police have started an investigation.

The cops said the Khejuri-Howrah-bound bus in a bid to overtake a stationary long chassis truck lost control and hit the lorry, carrying vegetables, coming from the opposite direction. After hitting the lorry, the bus hit three other vehicles.

On getting the information, the police went to the accident site at Narghat under Chandipur police station. The injured were rushed to the local hospital from where eight were shifted to the Tamluk district hospital where three persons, including the driver of the bus, died soon after admission. The condition of five persons is stated to be critical.

The police said preliminary investigation had revealed that the driver of the ill-fated bus must have become unconscious after hitting the lorry and continued to hit three more vehicles till it stopped. The front portion of the bus has been badly damaged.

The driver of the long chassis vehicle could not be spotted. The driver had wrongly parked the vehicle at the site. The driver of the bus could not gauge the speed of the vegetable-laden lorry coming from the opposite direction and hit it head-on. Local people helped the police to take out the injured persons and rush them to the hospital.