Twenty-four migrant workers were killed and at least 15 injured in a road accident on Saturday in northern India, police said.
The accident took place in the early hours of the morning in Uttar Pradesh state's Auriya district, local police official Kamlesh Kumar Dixit said.
A truck with more than 20 migrant workers travelling from Delhi collided with a stationary tractor trolley in the district's Mihauli area, Dixit said.
The second vehicle was loaded with construction material and more migrant workers who were on their way home from Rajasthan. Both vehicles overturned.
The workers were travelling to the eastern states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
‘At least 24 died and 15 injured are admitted to the local hospital,’ Dixit said.
India's lockdown, in place to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, has deprived millions of labourers and others of work and has resulted in their mass exodus from urban centres to villages.
Many are attempting the journeys of hundreds of kilometres on foot with their families and children, trying to hitch rides on the way.
Special buses and trains are being organised by the authorities for the stranded workers but have so far proved inadequate for the large numbers on the roads.
Accidents involving workers on their way home have been reported across the country. Fourteen workers were killed in two separate incidents on Thursday in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and scores were injured.
Last week, a freight train crushed 16 migrant workers who had stopped to rest along some railway tracks.
