In a tragic and shocking accident, seven persons, on a pilgrimage from Coimbatore to Guruvayoor Sree Krishna Temple, died when the Maruti Omni van they were travelling in collided with an oncoming truck in front of the Kasaba Police station on National Highway-47 in Pudussery in the early hours of Tuesday.
In this major accident, six persons died on the spot and one died in the District Hospital in Palakkad.
The bodies of the deceased were handed over to the relatives after postmortem in the district hospital here on Tuesday.
The State government has announced a compensation of Rs.1 lakh to the family members of each of the deceased.
The deceased are Sreenivasan (40), son of Raghavan of Vignesh Nagar, Coimbatore, his wife Saritha Sreenivasan (30), son Nishkar Krishna (5) and daughter Lakshmi (1 year).
The other deceased are Dinesh Kumar (28), son of Rajan of Rangaraja Gaundar Veedhi, Coimbatore, and Madhu (28), son of Ganesh Kumar of Thalaikalam Parambu, West Hill, Kozhikkode.
The local people, police and fire force personnel conducted relief operations and brought the victims of the accident to the District Hospital.
The two families hailed from Kaloor in Pathirippala and the nearby Mankara in the district but settled in Coimbatore for the last several years, the relatives of the deceased said.
