Six people lost their lives and three others sustained injuries after a collision between an SUV and a truck in Ranitali village, under Hathinala police station limits here on Sunday, officials said.
The accident occurred around 7:30 pm on the Varanasi-Shaktinagar State Highway when a truck crossed the divider, veered into the opposite lane and collided head-on with a Hyundai Creta car going from Chhattisgarh towards Robertsganj.
According to Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Meena, the deceased include four occupants of the car, the truck driver and the driver of another vehicle crossing the road.
Among the identified victims are Sanaullah Khalifa (40), a resident of Ramanujganj, Chhattisgarh, and Ravi Mishra (45) of Medical College Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh. Another victim, Umashankar Patel, son of the late Banarasi Patel, was a truck driver from Adalhat, Mirzapur. The identities of the three other deceased remain unknown.
The injured include two women and a man, who were rushed to the district hospital by police teams from Hathinala and Duddhi police stations. Given the severity of their injuries, they are being referred to a higher medical center.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the deceased have been sent to the Duddhi mortuary.
Senior police officials inspected the accident site and an investigation is underway to determine the exact cause of the truck's deviation into the opposite lane.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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