Horrific Car Accident on Mumbai-Pune Highway; 5 Killed

An offence was registered against the driver…

Mumbai: On Thursday night, five people were killed and four injured in a horrific road accident on the Mumbai-Pune highway.

A Maruti Suzuki Ertiga car in which the victims were travelling from Pune to Mumbai rammed into a truck from behind at around 11:30 pm last night. The collision was so severe that four people died on the spot there. The car was completely damaged.

The accident happened near Khopoli in the Raigad district of Maharashtra. All the three injured have been admitted to the MGM Hospital.

"The car was going from Pune to Mumbai when it hit the truck from the rear around 12 am. There were nine occupants in the car. While four persons died on the spot, another one succumbed to injuries while being taken to a hospital," an official of Khopoli police station said. All the victims were men, while one of the four injured was a woman, he said.

Preliminary probe indicated that the driver of the car lost control, due to which the vehicle hit the truck badly. An offence was registered against the driver and further investigation is going on in the incident, police said.

The NCRB data for 2021 shows 17,993 accidents in Indian Railways, a rise of 38% compared to the year 2020, with most accidents in Maharashtra.

According to the 2013 global survey of traffic collisions by the UN World Health Organization, India suffered a road fatality rate of 16.6 per 100,000 people in 2013.

India's average traffic collision fatality rate was similar to the world average rate of 17.4 deaths per 100,000 people, less than the low-income countries which averaged 24.1 deaths per 100,000, and higher than the high-income countries which reported the lowest average rate of 9.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2013.