Driver dies, 3 injured after truck hits another on eway

Pune: A truck driver died after his vehicle crashed into another truck from behind before turning on its side while negotiating a left turn on a slope in the Pune-Mumbai corridor of the expressway near Amrutanjan point around 5.30am on Thursday. Three others from the trucks were injured in the accident, which resulted in the blockage of a major portion of the three lanes of the corridor.This is the second incident of its kind in the last two days as a container truck had turned on its side in the Khandala tunnel on Wednesday, disrupting Mumbai-bound eway traffic for 30 minutes. Khopoli police identified the deceased truck driver as Sadanand Patil (43) of Kolhapur and the injured as Laxman Divate, who was in Patil’s truck, and Qasim Ansari (30) and Abdul Qureshi (32), the driver and cleaner of the other truck. Ansari and Qureshi are residents of Kalaburagi in Karnataka. All the injured are undergoing treatment. Lata Phad, the highway safety patrol SP in Pune, said a heavy duty crane was deployed to clear the road after the accident. “We first cleared a lane by cleaning the glass pieces [that were in Patil’s truck] and a single lane was thrown open for vehicles around 6.30am,” Phad said. “We allowed cars and SUVs to use this lane to Mumbai while heavy vehicles were stopped on the shoulder lane of the Mumbai corridor. Around 10.30am, vehicular movement returned to normalcy.”