Seven women, who were sitting on the low-level concrete median, were killed when a tourist van fell on them after it was hit by a goods-laden lorry on the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway (NH 44) at Sandaipalli village near Natrampalli town in Tirupattur district in the early hours on September 11.
Police said that ten persons including the drivers of the van and the lorry were injured in the accident. Of the injured persons, five of them are women. The victims were identified as M. Meena (50), D. Devayani (32), P. Saittu (55), S. Devika (50), V. Savitri (42), K. Kalavathi (50) and R. Geetha (34). All of them belong to Pernambut town in Vellore district
Along with eight relatives from Pernambut town, the deceased women were on a tourist visit to pilgrim and tourist centres in Karnataka from September 8 onwards. They had hired a tourist van for the purpose.
After visiting tourist spots, they were returning home on the highway when the tyre of the front wheel of the van got punctured. As a result, all of them in the van got down from the vehicle and were sitting on the concrete median, which is around one foot-high, near the van. The danger lights of the vehicle and additional lights were functioning.
However, P. Arunachalam (34), the driver of the goods-laden lorry, which had the consignment of smart boards for classrooms and was heading to Chennai from Bengaluru, failed to notice the van and hit the parked van from behind. In the impact, the van fell on the people sitting on the median near the vehicle, killing seven women on the spot. The incident happened around 2.40 a.m. on September 11.
Immediately, the patrol vehicles of Natrampalli police and the NHAI rushed to the spot and rescued the injured persons. They were then shifted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Krishnagiri and Tirupattur and to the Government Taluk Hospital in Vaniyambadi. Bodies were sent to the government hospital in Tirupattur. A case has been filed by Natrampalli police. Tirupattur Collector D. Bhaskara Pandian visited the kin of the victims at the government hospital in Tirupattur.
