At least 10 people were killed and several suffered injuries after a bus and a truck collided on National Highway 11 in Rajasthan’s Bikaner district on Monday, ANI reported. The bus was on its way from Bikaner to Jaipur when the accident occurred around 7.45 am near the town of Shri Dungargarh.
“Cranes were used to separate the two overturned vehicles,” Gulab Nabi Khan, the station house officer of Seruna police station, told The Times of India. “The bus was full and that is why we have a lot of injured people. There are 10 casualties till now but the toll might go up as few are critically hurt.”
The head-on collision damaged the front of the bus due to which several passengers were stuck, reported The Hindu. Officials reportedly found it difficult to extricate people as the bus caught fire after the accident.
Bodies of five of the deceased were sent to a mortuary in Bikaner while the others were sent to a facility at Shri Dungargarh. Some of the injured were receiving treatment, unidentified police officials said, adding that rescue operations were going on.
According to a Ministry of Road Transport and Highways report, the number of people killed in all road accidents in 2018 was an all-time high of 1,51,417, about 3,500 more than the preceding year. The total number of accidents in 2018 was 4,67,044 – a daily average of 1,280 accidents. Vehicles going on the wrong side of the country’s roads killed 24 people a day on an average in 2018. Accidents due to collisions with parked vehicles claimed 4,780 lives in the same year.
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