In the early hours of Friday in Maharashtra’s Nashik district, a speeding bus collided with a truck, killing ten people and injuring at least 22, according to police officials.
According to officials, many of the 45 passengers on the private tourist bus were going to the temple town of Shirdi in the Ahmednagar district while working for a company with offices in Ambernath in the Thane district.
At least six of the fatalities were from Morivali village in Ambernath tehsil. The incident happened at around six in the morning on the Nashik-Ahmednagar road close to Pathare Shivar village in Nashik’s Sinnar tehsil, around 180 kilometres from Mumbai.
The deceased included a man, two young boys, and seven women. Officials from the state highway control room said that a portion of the two-lane Sinnar-Shirdi route was closed on one side so that construction could be done there. After the collision, both vehicles were totally destroyed.
The tragedy resulted in the loss of life, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh from the PM National Relief Fund to the relatives of each deceased. The PMO tweeted that the injured would receive Rs 50,000 each.
Eknath Shinde, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, has ordered an investigation into the accident’s cause and assured financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh for each of the deceased’s relatives.
The bus was practically split open along one side and reduced to a shell, while the truck’s front cabin was reduced to a twisted heap. The injured were transported to Sinnar’s Yashwant Hospital and the Government Rural Hospital.
In a conversation with the divisional commissioner for Nashik, Shinde requested that he promptly transport the injured to Nashik and Shirdi for medical attention and launch an investigation into the accident’s causes.
They were all professional packers at Balaji Packing Company, where it was customary for staff members to organise annual trips to holy locations.
Local MLA Balaji Kinnikar visited the area and gave the families of the victims his word that the government will do everything in its power to assist them.
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