Driver charred to death in head-on collision between tanker & truck

Darjeeling: A person was charred to death when an oil tanker collided head on with a truck transporting medicine at Kalijhora on National Highway 10 to Sikkim.

The incident occurred at around 2am on Friday near the Kalijhora bridge. A Light Diesel Oil (LDO) tanker from Assam was going to Jorethang, Sikkim while a truck carrying medicine from Sikkim was going towards Siliguri. A head on collision took place and the tanker caught fire.

The driver of the tanker managed to managed to get out of the tanker on fire. However 55 year old Kumar Subba of Salugarah, Siliguri, the driver of the truck was trapped inside the blazing truck. He was charred to death.

A fire tender from the nearby NHPC was pressed into service but could not control the fire owing to the LDO having caught fire. The NH 10 remained closed. Fire tenders from Salugarah were also called in. The tenders tried to extinguish the fire from both the sides. Finally on Friday morning the fire was extinguished and traffic resumed on NH10 at around 7am.