Four persons were killed on the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh when a container truck hit their BMW car on Friday, a senior official said. The BMW going from Sultanpur was hit by the container coming from the opposite direction on the expressway under the Haliapur police station area, he said.
The collision was so severe that the engine of the car and all four occupants were blown away and fell at some distance away, the official said.
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The police and Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) officials soon rushed to the spot to carry out relief and rescue operations, he said.
District Magistrate Ravish Kumar and Superintendent P Somen Burma soon reached the spot and directed the SDM to take necessary action. The deceased have been identified as Anand Prakash (35), resident of Dehri, Bihar, Akhilesh Singh (35), and Deepak Kumar (37), both from Aurangabad, Bihar while efforts were on to identify the fourth deceased, the DM said.
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Last week, a car got stuck in a 5 ft deep and 15 ft wide pothole on the expressway after heavy rains.
The expressway, connecting Lucknow to Ghazipur district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2021, ahead of the Assembly elections in February-March.