Oil tanker ploughs into 9 cars, no one hurt

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 19

Nine cars were damaged when an oil tanker hit them from the rear side at the Sector 44/45/50/51 light point today, leading to traffic snarls. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the accident. The oil tanker driver claimed that the brakes of the vehicle failed, resulting in the mishap.

Eyewitnesses said the cars had stopped at the red light when the tanker rammed into these. Two i20 cars, two Chevrolet Beat cars, two Swift Dzire cars, an Ertiga, a Ford Ikon car and an Alto car were damaged. The impact of the accident was so huge that five cars were badly damaged. The front seats of six cars were broken.

Satnam Singh, whose car was wrecked, rushed to the tanker after the accident and pulled out the keys of the tanker so that the driver did not flee from the spot.

Ramesh Kumar Gupta who, along with his family, was travelling in his Swift Dzire car, said they had just halted when the tanker rammed into their vehicle. The boot of the car was completely damaged. “We are fortunate that nobody got injured,” he said. Ashok Vashist, who was travelling in his Swift car, had a narrow escape. The tanker dragged the car for several metres. Rinku, an eyewitness, said the tanker hit all cars almost simultaneously, giving no time to anyone to move out of the car.

Inspector Ranjodh Singh, SHO of the Sector 49 police station, said the tanker driver, Ajay Kumar, a resident of Panchkula, had been arrested and the vehicle impounded. Though the police claimed that no one was injured in the incident, sources said a few of them received minor injuries and went to hospital on their own.