In an extremely unfortunate incident, three people were killed in a road accident caused by dense fog in West Bengal`s Alipurduar district on Saturday.
According to the police, the incident occurred due to a head-on collision between a small car and a 12-wheeler trailer. After the accident, the trailer fell into a ditch beside the road, reported by news agency IANS.
Police while briefing about the incident said, “A small car was travelling towards Siliguri in north Bengal. The trailer was coming from the opposite direction,” as per IANS.
The accident took place in the Garam Basati area of National Highway 31 in Alipurduar after an overtaking manoeuvre failed. The car was completely mangled due to the impact of the accident, as per IANS.
Among them, the driver of the car, Monojit Biswas, died on the spot. As per IANS, the deceased driver was a resident of the Sankosh tea garden area in the Kumargram area of Alipurduar district in West Bengal.
The other two deceased were identified as Souvik Biswas and Raju Mandal. Souvik was Monojit`s cousin and a resident of the Sankosh tea garden, while Mandal was a resident of Alipurduar and a car mechanic by profession.
Dense fog grips West Bengal
Locals said that the northern part of West Bengal has been experiencing dense fog for the past few days and because of that the visibility on the roads is almost zero.
While Bengal has been experiencing dense fog, officials have already advised drivers to be cautious while travelling on roads, especially on National Highways.
The officials are also considering providing hot milk, tea and biscuits for drivers travelling at night to minimize the risk of accidents due to fatigue.
Siliguri`s DCP (Traffic) Kazi Shamsuddin Ahmed while briefing about the incident said, “Visibility decreases during this time every year due to dense fog. Everyone needs to be more careful while driving on the road. Today, three people were killed in a road accident. We will advise people to be cautious while driving,” as per IANS.
In a different scenario, a container truck overturned after hitting the divider on the Vidyasagar Bridge in Kolkata during the early hours of Saturday.
A major accident was averted as the container`s speed was low. However, the incident caused traffic to move very slowly on the bridge which connects Howrah with Kolkata.
(With inputs from IANS)