Residents of Indrapalem were jolted out out of sleep as news broke that an accident took place on the Maredumilli ghat road in the early hours of Friday. Five persons, including four women, were killed when a van fell into a gorge in Lakkavaram forest range.
The reason for their anxiety was that a few residents of the area were among those who travelled to Chintooru to attend a gospel meeting. With television channels flashing the news, relatives made a beeline for the Government General Hospital and waited there to receive the injured.
Family members of the deceased were in a state of confusion because there was no clue as to whether the bodies were being shifted to Chintooru or Kakinada.
Over 50 people, most of them women, left for Chintooru by three vehicles on Thursday afternoon to attend the gospel meeting. The accident took place when they were returning. Most of them were daily wage workers.
“They are not frequent travellers. They could not say no to it as it is a religious event,” said B. Rajababu, a close relative of one of the injured persons, at the GGH.
