Mishap occurred as lorry driver fell asleep at wheel
A view of the road accident at Gandepalli in East Godavari district on Monday morning. (Photo: DC)
Rajahmundry: Sixteen people were buried under cement clinker and eight others were seriously injured when the driver of the lorry they were travelling in, fell asleep at the wheel and the vehicle plunged into a slushy field beside NH-16 near Murari village of Gandepalli mandal in East Godavari early on Monday.
The victims were among 35 labourers returning to different villages in the district. They had travelled to Eluru by an RTC bus but failed to get a connecting bus. After waiting for more than an hour, they went to the bypass and boarded the ill-fated lorry after paying the driver Rs 60 per person.
The lorry was transporting nearly 22 tonnes of cement clinker from Dachepalli in Guntur district to a unit located at Vepagunta of Visakhapatnam district for processing. The material had been covered with a tarpaulin sheet.
Along the way, the driver also bribed a police patrol for carrying unauthorised passengers and the workers promised to reimburse him when they reached their village. As they were nearing the suburbs of Murari village, the driver reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of the vehicle. As the vehicle careened towards the left of the road, the branches of a huge banyan tree hit the top of the driver’s cabin and the vehicle tilted into the slushy filed.
Sixteen labourers who were sitting on the left side of the lorry suffocated to death as they got buried under the cement clinker. Those sitting on the right side fell on the ground and suffered minor injuries.
As they raised an alarm, villagers came to their rescue and alerted the 108 ambulance service and the police on 100. Durga Prasad from Srungavaram village of Routhulapudi mandal, who survived the accident, said, “I saw a labourer get stuck under the cement clinker, his legs were free but his head and body, up to his hips, were buried. We did not know how to rescue him and he died soon after.”
The injured were shifted to the government hospital in Rajahmundry and two were shifted to a private hospital. The state government announced ex-gratia of '2 lakh to the kin of each deceased.
Kin of families protest over shifting of bodies:
The kin of the deceased in the road mishap protested over the way the bodies were shifted to their home villages without their consent. As the bodies of the deceased were brought to the government general hospital here on Monday for post-mortem, a large number of their relatives arrived to collect their bodies.
As the doctors were carrying out the post-mortem near the mortuary, they waited for the bodies to be handed over. Tirumala Acha Rao hailing from V.J. Puram of Prathipadu mandal in East Godavari lost his son-in-law Gobu Nagu in the mishap. He found fault with the police and the revenue authorities for shifting the bodies without taking their consent.
He said that they were waiting for the YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to visit the hospital and console them and blamed the authorities for shifting the bodies in a hurried manner. Several injured persons were also admitted at trauma care in the government hospital. Meanwhile, Deputy CM, N. China Rajappa and minister for Information and Public Relations, Palle Raghunatha Reddy consoled the family members of the deceased and inquired about the health of the labourers who suffered injuries.
Minister blames trucker:
AP home minister N. China Rajappa on Monday said that illegal transportation of the labourers was the main reason for the mishap that claimed 16 lives in Godavari district. Mr Rajappa said, “Illegal transportation should be curbed. The hot clinker in the lorry fell on them due to which they received burns.”
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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