Five members of a family were killed and two others seriously injured when a car carrying them plunged into a canal in Puri district of Odisha Tuesday, police said.
The victims were proceeding to Puri from Patrapur area in Ganjam district for immersing the ashes of a family member when the vehicle skidded off a road at Bhailipur area and slipped into the canal, the police said.
Two children and a woman were among those killed.
Local people launched a rescue operation after the accident and pulled out the victims from the vehicle.
The injured were initially rushed to a nearby hospital at Chandanpur and then shifted to a facility in Puri, the police said.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed grief over the death of the five persons and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased, an official in the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said.
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