Truck crushes school van in northern India, killing 11

2012-01-03 08:58:08 GMT+7 (ICT)

AMBALA, INDIA (BNO NEWS) -- Eleven people were killed on early Monday morning when a truck crashed into a passenger school van in northern India, police said. All but one of those killed were young children.

The accident occurred early Monday morning when the overloaded passenger van collided head-on with another vehicle near the village of Bhita on the Saha-Shahabad road, not far from the city of Ambala in the country's Haryana State.

Ambala district officials said the overloaded school van was carrying students from Arjun Public School near Saha and said the ten child victims were between 5 and 8 years old. The eleventh fatality was the driver of the van, whose identity was not immediately released.

In addition to the fatalities, twenty others on the van were injured and taken to hospitals in Ambala where some remain in a critical condition. The driver of the other vehicle, a truck, fled the scene of the accident and was being searched by authorities.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known, but local police said heavy fog in the area made it difficult for the drivers to see.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-01-03

How very sad for many families.