Daijiworld Media Network - Coimbatore
Coimbatore, Aug. 2: Five people, including three women, were killed after the car in which they were travelling crashed into the rear of a stationary lorry on the Pollachi-Udumalai National Highway near Nallampalli in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district on Sunday, police said.
The accident occurred on Sunday afternoon when the car was travelling from Udumalai towards Pollachi.
According to preliminary investigations, the lorry had been parked along the highway while workers were watering roadside plants. Police said the car, allegedly travelling at high speed, rammed into the rear of the stationary vehicle.
The impact crushed the front portion of the car, trapping all five occupants inside. Three women and two men died on the spot.
Motorists and local residents alerted the police and emergency services, following which rescue teams reached the spot and extricated the victims from the mangled vehicle.
The bodies were shifted to a government hospital for post-mortem examination.
The accident disrupted traffic on the busy highway as police and rescue personnel carried out recovery operations and cleared the damaged vehicles.
Police have registered a case and launched an investigation to determine the exact cause of the accident, including whether overspeeding or the positioning of the stationary lorry contributed to the collision.
The latest tragedy comes amid a spate of fatal road accidents in Tamil Nadu in recent weeks. On July 24, six people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in two separate accidents in Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts. In one incident, three employees of a private company died after their car crossed the median and collided with a lorry on the Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway near Keelambi.
Earlier, on July 18, three people were killed and five others injured when a car carrying eight passengers rammed into a tanker lorry near Chengapalli on the Salem-Coimbatore National Highway in Tiruppur district. On July 13, six people lost their lives and 41 others were injured after an omni bus collided with a government bus near Vanchinagaram on the Tiruchy-Madurai National Highway.
The accident has once again raised concerns over road safety, overspeeding and the risks posed by stationary vehicles on high-speed highways.