Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (SP)
Kundapur, Sep 5: In a macabre accident that occurred at Ottinene bend on national highway 66 near Byndoor in the taluk on Sunday September 4 at around 8 pm, the driver of a tanker was charred to death. While a truck was reduced to ashes in the accident, the tanker was partially burnt.
The accident occurred when a tanker, which was returning to Mangalore from Koppal after emptying its load of furnace oil, got involved in a head-on collision with a lorry carrying goods from Mangalore to Hubli. It is gathered that the cleaner of the tanker jumped to safety immediately after the accident, and that he is being treated in a hospital. The fate of the driver and others in the ill-fated lorry is not yet known.
The truck had two occupants, driver and the lorry cleaner, drivers of some other trucks which reached the scene within minutes of the accident, said. Their fate is not yet known. Those who rushed to the spot could not find them. It is not clear as to whether they too perished in the accident, or have survived. No one saw them jumping to safety, and the way the truck has fallen on its side in the drain, it is deemed almost impossible for them to save themselves within a fraction of a second. The truck was loaded with rice, rice floor, and other provisions, it is learnt.
Because of the impact of the accident, the lorry was shoved to the roadside drain, and instantly caught fire. The front portion of the tanker was badly mangled, and the fire ignited due to friction at its front tyres moved above and burnt its driver alive.
As there were huge flames, dousing the fire posed a great challenge. Fire brigade vehicles from Bhatkal and Kundapur worked hard till sometime after midnight to extinguish the fire. Traffic on the road got blocked for nearly two hours because of the accident, and the policemen paved way for movement of vehicles on one side of the road thereafter.
Ottinene bend is steep, and careless drivers had contributed to a number of accidents here in the past too.