Mirzapur, 22 April

Eleven people, including children, were killed in a multi-vehicle collision triggered by a suspected brake failure in a truck in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur district, police said on Thursday.

The accident was reported around 8.30pm on Wednesday, following which police and fire brigade teams rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation with the help of locals, SP Aparna Rajat Kaushik said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has condoled the loss of lives in what he called an “extremely tragic and heart-rending” incident.

Police said the collision occurred on a stretch of National Highway-135 descending from the Dramandganj valley towards Lasoda, about 50 km from the district headquarters.

According to preliminary findings, a truck travelling downhill is suspected to have suffered a brake failure before ramming into another truck moving ahead of it.

A car travelling between the two trucks was crushed in the impact. In the chain collision that followed, another car caught fire after being hit, Kaushik said.

“Police, along with locals, pulled out the victims trapped in the mangled vehicles. So far, 11 deaths have been reported,” the SP said.

District Magistrate Pawan Gangwar told PTI that seven of those killed were from Mirzapur district, three from Madhya Pradesh, while one was from neighbouring Sonbhadra district.

The deceased from Mirzapur's Jigna area included Shiva Singh (8), Sonam Singh (9), Piyush Singh (14), Pankaj Singh (40), Vandana Singh (43), Vishnu Singh (45) and Veena Singh (47).

The others who died in the accident included Kartikeya Singh (18) and Priyanka Singh (42) from Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Vikas Sharma (32) from Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, and Jai Prakash (27) from Sonbhadra, the officials said.

The vehicles involved in the crash included a truck bearing a Bihar registration number and another registered in Madhya Pradesh. Among the cars, one was from Sonbhadra district and the other from Mirzapur.

In a post on X Thursday morning, Adityanath said, “The loss of lives in the road accident in Mirzapur is extremely tragic and heart-rending. My condolences are with the bereaved families."

"Instructions have been issued to the officials concerned to ensure proper treatment for the injured," he said.

“I pray to Lord Ram that the departed souls attain eternal peace, the grief-stricken families are granted the strength to bear this immense sorrow, and the injured recover swiftly,” the chief minister added.

Gangwar said the bodies have been sent to the mortuary and the victims' families have been informed.

Efforts are underway to restore traffic movement on the affected stretch, and a detailed probe has been initiated to ascertain the exact cause of the accident, police said.