Five dead, 40 injured in tanker-tractor collision near Agra

Agra: An oil tanker collided with two tractor-trolleys on the Agra-Mathura highway, killing five people and injuring 40, police said on Friday.

The accident took place late Thursday night. Traffic on the highway was suspended for over two hours, as scores of villagers helped in extricating bodies from the vehicles.

The tractor-trolleys were packed with about 60 Krishna devotees from Etah district headed to Mathura for the Goverdhan parikrama, a police official said.

The pilgrims had stopped at a roadside eatery when the oil tanker from Agra hit them. Four persons were killed on the spot and a fifth died later.

The cabin of the oil tanker caught fire. Had the oil tanker been full, the number of casualties would have been higher, said an official from the Sikandra police station.

"Thank god there was no oil. Otherwise the whole area would have been engulfed in an inferno," said an eye-witness.

The injured were transferred to the emergency ward of Agra's medical college for treatment, police said.