VILLUPURAM/KALLKURICHI: Three-year-old son of a farmer was killed in a road accident near Mailam on Saturday. While descending from an overhead bridge in Kooteripattu, the tractor the boy was travelling on collided with a lorry near the weekly market.
Police said that the farmer, Siva (45) from Edapalayam, was transporting hollow bricks on his tractor to deliver them to his elder sister in Chengalpattu. Accompanying him were his three children, including his second child, S Devaviruthan (3).
The collision with the lorry sent the tractor speeding across the road, and only after crossing a short distance from the site of the accident Siva noticed his second son was missing. He immediately rushed back to the spot and found his son under the lorry with severe injuries. The boy was taken to the Government Hospital in Tindivanam, where the doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. The Mailam police registered a case and are on the lookout for the lorry driver who fled the scene.
Bus overturns on highway, 9 passengers injured
In a separate incident near Asanur in Ulundurpet, a private bus transporting 27 passengers from Nagercoil to Chennai overturned on the Tiruchy-Chennai National Highway during the wee hours of Saturday. The driver and the cleaner -- A Hariharan (56) from Ammapuram near Tiruchendur and S Sabarinathan (26) from Tanjore -- and seven passengers from Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, Chennai, and Tuticorin districts suffered severe injuries. The Edaikkal Police said that the accident happened as the bus hit a roadside safety wall while attempting to overtake a lorry. The injured were transported to the Government Hospital in Ulundurpet. The traffic along the highway was affected for an hour as the police cleared the vehicle from the accident site.