11 Dead in Van-Cement Mixer Crash in Maharashtra

Eleven people died and at least one other was critically injured when a passenger van collided head-on with a cement mixer on a bridge in Maharashtra's Thane district on Monday morning. The crash occurred around 10:45 a.m. on the Raita Bridge in Govili village, part of the Murbad area along the Kalyan-Ahilyanagar National Highway.

Police officials reported that the Maruti Eeco taxi van, carrying 12 passengers from Murbad toward Kalyan, slammed into the oncoming cement mixer with such force that the van was left completely mangled. The victims included eight men and three women, most of whom died at the scene. Authorities identified nine of the deceased as Bablue Rupesh Chandane, Bhushan Ghorpade, Jija Govinda Kembar, Anant Pawar, Deepak Gavil, Ganpat Jainu Madhe, Sneha Mohape, Manasi Mohape, and Prathamesh Mohape. The lone survivor, an elderly woman, was rushed to a hospital in Ulhasnagar for treatment, while the bodies were sent for postmortem examinations.

Rescue teams from the Titwala police station, along with local residents, arrived quickly after the loud impact and worked to extricate the trapped passengers from the wreckage. Traffic on the highway was disrupted for...