Migrants were sleeping when death struck in Auraiya; Dazed survivors unable to recount events

I was sleeping and don't know what happened, said a dazed Vandana, a survivor of the accident in which 25 migrants workers were killed and 40 other were injured here on Saturday.

Rescue workers and locals were toiling to remove the sacks of lime powder using JCB machines and pull out the people buried underneath after a trailer rammed into a stationary truck near an eatery and both the vehicles overturned at around 3 AM on the Auraiya-Kanpur Dehat stretch of National Highway 19.

Vandana was among the 22 occupants of the truck which had stopped at the eatery as they wanted to have tea.

"I got up with a jerk and fell down from the truck," she said before becoming unconscious.

Rucksacks and packets of food lay strewn at the site, telling the grim story of how, like lakhs of other migrant workers across the country, these people had hitched rides on the two vehicles in their desperation to reach home during the coronavirus lockdown.

The trailer was carrying sacks of lime powder on which the around 40 workers were sleeping when it crashed into the stationary truck, officials said.

The truck was carrying around 22 people, including five women and seven children, officials said.

The highway has agriculture fields on both side. Hearing the impact of the collision, villagers rushed to site and helped the police and district administration officials in the rescue work.

Both the vehicles overturned after the crash.

"Five of those brought here are in a very serious condition and one of them has been put on ventilator. Two of them have head injury," Vice-Chancellor of Saifai Medical University Dr Raj Kumar said