Bhawanipatna: Six persons, including five members of a family, died and another was seriously injured when the vehicle in which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck near Jaring forest in Odisha’s Kalahandi district in the early hours of Wednesday.
The deceased have been identified as Ashutosh Behera, his brother Jagannath, son Viki, two granddaughters and the housemaid.
According to sources, Ashutosh and his family had gone to Visakhapatnam on May 20 for health check-up of one of his family members. The family left Visakhapatnam on Tuesday night and arrived at Kesinga station at around 2.30 am. From there, they were on the way to their native village Kharselguda near Bhawanipatna when a speeding truck coming from the opposite direction collided head-on with the vehicle. While Ashutosh and his brother died on the spot, the four other members sustained critical injuries.
The incident took place at around 4 am.
On being informed, police rushed to the spot and admitted the injured to the district headquarters hospital where three of them succumbed. The critically injured daughter-in-law of Ashutosh was later shifted to a private hospital in Waltair city in Andhra Pradesh.
The postmortem of the deceased was later conducted at the district headquarters hospital. The bodies will be handed over to the kin, police said.