TIRUCHY: Five people, including two women, were killed in a road accident near Kulithalai in Karur district in the early hours of Wednesday.
Four members of a family, along with their driver, were on their way to a temple in Okkanadu Keelayur, near Orathanadu in Thanjavur district, when the accident occurred.
The accident took place on the Tiruchy-Karur National Highway near Kulithalai at around 2:15 am. Firefighters struggled for more than an hour to retrieve the bodies trapped in the wreckage, police said.
District Collector M. Thangavel and Superintendent of Police K. Feroz Khan Abdullah rushed to the spot and conducted an inquiry.
According to the police, the deceased have been identified as S. Selvaraj, 50, a native of Gandhi Nagar in Sugunapuram East in Coimbatore district; his wife, S. Kalayarasi, 45; their daughter, S. Akalya, 25; their son, S. Arun, 22; and the car driver, Vishnu, 24, a resident of Villarasanpatti in Erode district.
The car they were traveling in was on the Karur-Tiruchy National Highway near Kulithalai when it collided head-on with a TNSTC bus heading towards Tiruppur from Aranthangi in Pudukottai district via Tiruchy.
In the impact, the car was crushed under the lower part of the bus, leaving it completely wrecked. All five occupants, including the driver, died on the spot after being trapped in the wreckage.
Upon receiving information, the Kulithalai police, with the help of fire and rescue service personnel, worked for about 1.5 hours to recover the bodies from the mangled vehicle. The police then sent the bodies to the Kulithalai Government District Headquarters Hospital for post-mortem examination.