KADAPA: A road accident at the fourth curve of Guvvalacheruvu ghat in Chinthakommadinne mandal, Kadapa district, claimed the lives of four members of a family and left three others injured on Saturday.
Chinthakommadinne Police said a lorry transporting sugar from Lillipuram in Tamil Nadu to Hyderabad rammed into a car after reportedly suffering brake failure. A family was travelling from Bengaluru to their native village at Chintaputtayapalle in the car.
Police identified the deceased as Software Engineer Basineni Sreekanth Reddy (32), his wife Nagireddy Sirisha (27), and two children from their extended family – Harshitha Reddy (9) and Rishikesh Reddy (11). The accident left their daughter, Trishika Reddy, orphaned.
“Sreekanth Reddy, who worked as a software engineer in Bengaluru, was visiting his native village to attend the 41st-day celebrations of a newly consecrated Sri Rama temple he had built,” police said.
The family, including Sreekanth, Sirisha, their daughter Trishika, Sirisha’s elder sister Kokatum Shashikala, her two children, and another relative, Siddhamurthy Swarna, were travelling in a KA 53 MN 2664 car. As they approached the fourth curve of the ghat, the speeding lorry crashed into the car, and sugar sacks from the vehicle fell onto it, crushing it completely.
Circle Inspector Shankar Naik, Brake Inspector Vijay Bhaskar, firefighters, and locals used a JCB and hydraulic cutter to rescue victims trapped in a mangled car.
Sreekanth and Sirisha died on the spot, while Harshitha and Rishikesh succumbed at the government hospital. Shashikala, who lost both her children, survived with injuries. She is the wife of software engineer Tirupathi Reddy, currently in Germany. Police sent the bodies for post-mortem and launched an investigation.