Four people were killed and three others were critically injured in two separate Chhattisgarh road accidents in Mahasamund and Bemetara districts between Friday night and Saturday morning, with police investigating the circumstances of both crashes.
In Mahasamund, an ambulance carrying a patient and accompanying persons towards Odisha collided with the rear of a stationary truck on National Highway 353 near a school in the Bagbahara area on Saturday morning. Two women travelling in the ambulance died at the spot, while three other occupants, including two women and a man, suffered serious injuries.
The ambulance was reportedly returning towards Odisha after the patient had received treatment in Mahasamund. The collision severely damaged the front portion of the vehicle. Local residents alerted the police after hearing the impact, and rescue personnel, assisted by villagers, pulled the occupants from the wreckage and took them to the Bagbahara community health centre.
The three injured people were given emergency treatment before doctors referred them to another hospital for advanced care because of their critical condition. Police sent the bodies of the two women for postmortem examination and began efforts to establish the identities of the deceased and injured. Preliminary information indicated that the occupants were from Odisha.
Investigators are examining why the ambulance struck the stationary truck and whether the truck had been parked in a designated location. They are also checking whether adequate warning signals were placed around the vehicle. Reports that the ambulance driver left the scene after the collision were still awaiting police confirmation.
The second crash took place late on Friday night near Ninwa village on the Bemetara-Durg main road. Kedar Jaiswal, 62, and his brother-in-law Govardhan Sinha, 50, died after the motorcycle on which they were travelling from Bemetara towards Durg met with an accident. Both men suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene.
Bemetara police registered a case and began an investigation. The exact circumstances of the motorcycle crash remained unclear, including whether another vehicle was involved. Police are investigating both incidents to establish the causes and determine the sequence of events in each crash.
