Four killed, six injured as van rams into parked truck in Andhra Pradesh’s Palnadu district

Vijayawada: Four persons died, and six others were injured after the van they were travelling in rammed into a parked truck near Nagaravanam in Macherla of Palnadu district on Friday.According to Macherla police, the accident occurred around 3.30am when a family of 12 — residents of Dilsukhnagar in Hyderabad — were on their way to Kanigiri for a relative’s funeral.The deceased are Kadiri Venkatesarlu (49), his wife Kadiri Sarada, Piduguralla Satyanarayana (50), and Kothamsetti Nagalakshmi (38). The family runs a pearl business in Dilsukhnagar, but is native to Nagireddypalli in Veligandla mandal of Prakasam district in Andhra Pradesh, police said.Police said the truck driver had parked the vehicle at a turning to change a flat tyre. The van driver, unable to negotiate the curve, rammed into the vehicle, killing the four passengers on the spot.Macherla police retrieved the bodies and shifted them to Macherla govt hospital. The injured were admitted to a private hospital in Guntur, and a case has been registered.Meanwhile, energy minister Gottipati Ravi Kumar, who is in-charge of Palnadu, held a meeting with district authorities and reviewed a series of road accidents that have occurred in the district. He directed officials to identify accident-prone stretches and implement immediate preventive measures. He stressed the need for installing warning signboards, reflective road signage, and other safety infrastructure at accident-prone spots.

He also instructed police to ensure prompt safety arrangements whenever heavy vehicles break down or get stranded on roads due to glitches.