9 killed, 27 injured as bus collides with truck in UP's Barabanki

Lucknow: At least nine people were killed and 27 others were said to be seriously injured after a truck and a passenger bus collided in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district. “Nine people were killed and 27 injured in a collision between a truck and a passenger bus in Barabanki,” said district magistrate Adarsh Singh. “The injured have been shifted to a local hospital.” The rescue teams have rushed the injured people to a local hospital; those gravely wounded have been shifted to the KGMU trauma centre in the state capital, Lucknow, while others are undergoing treatment at a Barabanki district hospital.

According to people familiar with the development, the bus was en route from Delhi to UP's Bahraich via Lucknow when it collided head-on against the truck, leading to the death of the passengers. The tourist bus reached Baburi village on Kisan Path in the Deva Kotwali area around 5.30am on Thursday when a truck heading towards it from the opposite end “suddenly went berserk” and collided against it head-on. Splinters came off from the heavyweight vehicles, according to eyewitness reports, owing to the fact that both the bus and the truck were travelling at very high speeds.

Police personnel and officials from the district administration rushed to the spot on receiving news of the accident. As per a report by HT's sister publication Live Hindustan, emergency responders managed to cut off portions from the bus and retrieve the injured from the accident spot. When the injured people were dispatched to the district hospital, the doctors declared nine of them dead on arrival, as per the report. However, there are other passengers yet to be identified.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his grief over the incident and announced ₹2 lakh ex gratia to the kin of each of the deceased and ₹50,000 to each of those injured in the incident.

Condoling the loss of lives in the road accident, the UP chief minister said his thoughts are with the family of the deceased and also directed the state administration officials to provide proper treatment and all possible help and relief to the injured.