ROURKELA: Drivers of two road trailers were charred to death after their vehicles caught fire following a head-on collision on the coal corridor road near Aulabahal in Sargipali under Lefripada police limits in Sundargarh district in the early hours of Sunday.
Police identified the deceased as Mantu Yadav (35) of Jharkhand and Chandan Yadav (37) of Bihar. A night patrol team was the first to reach the spot and alerted the fire services
Firefighting teams from nearby areas rushed to the spot and doused the flames, but both multi-axle trucks were completely gutted. The accident site is around 120 km from Rourkela.
Sargipali police outpost in-charge Uday Sahu said the accident occurred around 1 am when an empty road trailer and a coal-laden trailer, travelling in opposite directions at high speed, collided head-on. The coal-laden vehicle overturned on impact.
"There was a massive leakage of fuel from the damaged tank of one of the vehicles. A fire reportedly broke out following a short circuit inside the air-conditioned cabins and soon engulfed both vehicles," Sahu said.
Both drivers were trapped inside their cabins and burnt alive. Their bodies were later recovered from the charred vehicles and preserved for postmortem examination.
The postmortem examination will be conducted after their family members arrive, police said.
In a similar incident on June 16 this year, drivers of two multi-axle trucks were burnt alive after their vehicles caught fire following a head-on collision on State Highway 10 near Kainsara village under Bhasma police limits in Sundargarh district. The deceased were identified as Chhabindra Behura (49) of Cuttack district in Odisha and Sakil Khan (25) of Jharkhand.