25 migrant workers killed, 40 injured in trailer-truck collision in UP's Auraiya

At least 25 migrant workers were killed and 40 others were injured when a trailer and a stationary truck on which they had hitched rides collided on a highway near here in the early hours of Saturday, the latest in a string of accidents involving migrants returning to their states amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Most of the victims were sitting on sacks of wheat flour loaded on the trailer, and were crushed when the vehicles overturned and fell into a ditch following the crash near an eatery between 3 AM and 3.30 AM on the Auraiya-Kanpur Dehat stretch of National Highway 19, police said.

While many of the workers were from Jharkhand and West Bengal, some were from Kushinagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh, they said.

"The trailer hit the stationary truck near a dhaba (roadside eatery). The trailer was carrying bags of wheat flour, and most of the labourers were seated on these bags.

"In the accident, most of the labourers were crushed under these bags, and died. Some of them succumbed to injuries on the way to hospital," District Magistrate Abhishek Singh said, adding all the deceased were men.

The truck, which was going from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh, had stopped at the eatery as some workers wanted to have tea. It was carrying around 22 people, including five women and seven children, officials said.

The trailer with 43 migrants was coming from Rajasthan, they said
UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar 'Lallu' said that it was "not an accident, but murder."
Prof Raj Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, UP University of Medical Sciences Saifai said, "The injured have been kept at a COVID-19 hospital (in the university) and specialist doctors are monitoring them."