Lockdown latest update, migrants workers: At least nine migrant workers were killed and dozens injured in separate road accidents in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra on Monday night. While 5 were killed in two incidents in Uttar Pradesh, five others lost their lives in Mahrashtra’s Yavatmal.
Three migrant women workers were killed and more than a dozen were injured when their truck overturned on the Jhansi-Mirzapur highway following a tyre burst. According to reports, there were 17 people who were walking from Delhi to their native villages. The truck driver had agreed to drop them to their destination. But the truck overturned after a tyre burst.
The injured workers have been admitted to a hospital and the condition of four are said to be critical.
In the second incident which took place in Unnao, two migrants were killed and nearly 23 were injured when they were going to their native places in Azamgarh from Delhi in a truck. The mishap occurred on Agra-Lucknow Expressway.
In Maharashtra’s Yavatmal, four migrant workers lost their lives and 15 suffered injuries after a bus they were travelling in crashed into a truck. The incident took place in the wee hours today. The bus was going to drop migrants in Jharkhand from Solapur.
Nearly 50 migrant workers have died in the last 10 days while trying to return to their homes during the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
Earlier on Saturday, 26 migrants were killed and 37 were injured after two trucks collided in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh. On Sunday, 11 migrant labourers travelling from Himachal Pradesh to Bihar were injured after their bus was hit by a speeding truck in Kushinagar.
Although the state governments have repeatedly appealed to the migrants not to embark on foot march or travel in trucks to reach their native places and wait for government help, the migrants continue to walk hundreds of kms from cities like Delhi and Mumbai to reach their native villages.