# Five killed as truck in wrong lane hits motorcycles in Odisha's Ganjam
Five people were killed and eight others injured when a truck travelling in the wrong direction struck three motorcycles on an overbridge in Odisha's Ganjam district on Saturday afternoon, according to police. The vehicle hit the motorcycles on the Gosain Nuagaon overbridge, leaving a scene that drew police and fire service crews to the area soon after the crash.
The injured were taken to MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Berhampur for treatment. Police said the truck driver fled after the collision but was later arrested. An initial investigation indicated that the truck had been driven on the wrong side of the road before the impact.
The incident adds to the long-running road safety problem in Odisha, where state data released for 2024 showed that overspeeding and wrong-side driving were among the deadliest causes of crashes. The figures cited in the reporting showed thousands of accidents and deaths linked to dangerous driving behaviour, with national and state highways accounting for a large share of fatalities.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi expressed grief over the deaths and announced an ex gratia payment of ₹4 lakh for each of the families of those killed, according to the report. Emergency teams cleared the damaged vehicles from the overbridge after the crash so traffic could resume.
The accident happened on the Gosain Nuagaon overbridge near Haladiapadar, a route where motorcycles and heavier vehicles were both moving through the same stretch when the truck crossed into the wrong lane. The police account points to a simple but lethal pattern: a commercial vehicle in the wrong position, a cluster of two-wheelers in its path, and little time for escape.
For Odisha, the crash is another reminder that the biggest road-safety threats are often not rare or complex failures, but routine violations such as speeding, overtaking without care and driving against traffic. The official accident data included in the report showed that two-wheelers were involved in more crashes and deaths than any other vehicle class in the state, underscoring how exposed riders remain when larger vehicles break traffic rules.
Investigators are expected to continue examining the circumstances of the crash, including the truck's movement before impact and the sequence of events on the bridge. For the families of the dead and injured, the immediate concern is the hospital care and the aftermath of a collision that turned a normal afternoon journey into a mass casualty incident in a matter of seconds.
