Road accident in India: Truck crushes 15 sleeping people

An out-of-control dumper truck crushed fifteen people to death as they slept by the roadside early yesterday in western India, authorities said.   

The dead included a baby girl, eight women and six men, said police official Usha Rada in the Suraj district of Gujarat state. Six others were injured.

The truck collided with a tractor carrying sugarcane just after midnight at a crossroads. "The dumper driver... lost control of the vehicle and went off the road, crushing labourers sleeping on the roadside," a police official said.

The drivers of both the dumper truck and the tractor have been arrested, he added.

High-speed vehicles jostling with motorbikes, pedestrians and cyclists combine with poor infrastructure and poorly maintained vehicles to make India's roads treacherous. In 2019 more than 150,000 people died -- 410 every day or 17 an hour -- in almost half a million accidents, according to the government.

On Monpday, Indian transport minister Nitin Gadkari said the country aims to halve road deaths and accidents by 2025.