Rentachintala: Seven die as mini-truck crashes into parked lorry

Rentachintala (Palnadu district): Seven people were killed and 15 more were injured in a road mishap when the Ashok Leland mini truck they were travelling in hit a stationary lorry, just a few minutes before they reach home, neat Rentachintala in Prakasam district on Sunday midnight.

According to police, 38 people, mostly daily wage workers from the Vadderabavi area in Rentachintala village went to Srisailam for darshan of Lord Mallikarjuna Swamy, in the mini truck on Sunday morning. As they need to travel in tightly packed mini-truck in scorching heat, and due to fear of suffocation, they decided to return home in the evening and spent the day in the temple town. They started their return journey in the mini-truck again at around 5 pm from Srisailam and were expected to reach Rentachintala by midnight. But, by the time they reached the electricity substation of their hometown, just a few minutes from their destination, the driver lost control of the vehicle and hit a lorry parked on the roadside.

The locals and SI Sameer Basha and his staff immediately rushed to the spot and found that four people died on the spot. Two more people succumbed while being shifted to government hospital in Gurajala. Sixteen others are undergoing treatment for serious injuries.

Police shifted 11 others to the Guntur government general hospital for better treatment. One more person died on the way.

The dead have were identified as Narayanapuram Kotamma, 65, Kotamma, 70, Pulipadu Koteswaramma, 55, Makkena Venkataramana, 40, Peddarapu Lakshminarayana, 35, Kuricheti Ramadevi, 50 and Kanala Padma, 40. The police started the investigation of the case and suspect that the driver might have dozed off and crashed into the lorry.