Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) Six people were killed as a passenger vehicle collided head-on with a bus in the Mahishbathan-Kathalia area of West Bengal’s Nadia district on Tuesday.

The identities of the persons killed in the road accident are yet to be disclosed by the Nadia district police.

An official from the district police said that a van, carrying passengers, was en route to Digha in East Midnapore from the Najirpur area in Nadia district.

“The head-on collision between the van and the bus, also loaded with passengers and coming from the opposite direction, happened on the Krishnanagar-Karimpur state highway near Mahishbathan-Kathalia area. The accident happened at around 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday,” said the Nadia district police official.

All the people killed in the accident were the van occupants. The impact of the collision was that the van got crumpled, following which the bodies of the passengers got stuck.

Even the bus driver lost control of the steering and subsequently rammed into a tree at the roadside of the state highway after colliding with van. Some of the passengers travelling by the bus also sustained injuries.

The injured passengers are receiving treatment at the local Karimpur Rural Hospital.

The bodies of the deceased have been shifted for autopsy.

Local people launched the rescue operation initially. However, eyewitnesses said, the bodies of the deceased passengers travelling by the van got stuck within the crumpled vehicle in such a manner that they faced immense difficulty in extrication.

Ultimately, a police contingent reached the spot, extricated the bodies from inside the crumpled vehicle and sent them to the hospital. However, all van passengers had passed away by that time.

–IANS

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