Five people travelling in a car died after their vehicle collided with a stationary container truck on an expressway in Maharashtra’s Amaravati district on Sunday noon, the police said. According to police, the victims were native residents of the state’s Chandrapur district, and had been heading to the Akola town to attend a private family function when they met the ill-fate. 

Police said that the family was travelling in a Maruti Ignis car, which was rushing at a high speed and eventually rammed from the rear into a container truck parked on the roadside, resulting in the fatalities. 

The impact of the collision was so fierce that the car was reduced to a mangled heap of metal remains, and all the occupants of the vehicle died on the spot. 

Identities of the deceased

The people who lost their lives in the wreckage have been identified as Bhaskar Jivne (57), Mahadev Jivne (42), Aarti Jivne (40), Laya Jivne (43) and Krishna Jivne (12). As per preliminary reports, the family had set out from Chandrapur earlier in the day and was bound for Akola when the tragedy struck them on the expressway. 

Eyewitnesses told the cops that the Ignis appeared to be rushing at a high speed moments before it crashed into the rear of the truck. The force of the impact left no room for the survival of the occupants. 

The area was rocked by the devastating road accident, and the passers-by alerted the police immediately. 

Rescue teams plunge into action

Upon receipt of the information, the local police, accompanied by the highway security teams and emergency rescue personnel rushed to the scene. Rescuers extricated the victims from the mangled vehicle and rushed them to a hospital. However, the doctors pronounced all of them dead upon arrival. 

The car’s mangled condition spoke volumes about the impact of the collision, which is being touted as one of the deadliest road crashes reported in the region in recent weeks. 

“Driver may have fallen asleep”, suspect cops

The police launched a probe into the incident, and the investigating officials suspect the driver may have dozed off behind the wheel, leading the vehicle to plough into the parked truck. Officials said the incident is being probed at length to ascertain the circumstances leading up to the incident. 

The collision also disrupted the traffic on the expressway for some time, as rescue operations and vehicle recovery continued. Later, the authorities removed the wrecked car from the carriageway, following which smooth traffic movement was restored.