Six members of an Indian family, including two children, were killed in a horrific road accident when the minivan they were travelling in collided head-on with a pickup truck in the US state of Texas on Tuesday. One person from the minivan was injured and remains in a critical condition.
The accident occurred near Johnson County, near Fort Worth, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).
The seven occupants of the minivan were from the same family from Amalapuram town in Andhra Pradesh. 43-year-old Lokesh Potabathula is the only person from the minivan who survived the crash but remains in critical condition.
Potabathula’s wife, 36-year-old Naveena Potabathula; the couple’s children, 9-year-old Nishidha Potabathula and 10-year-old Krithik Potabathula; and Naveena Potabathula’s parents, 60-year-old Sitamahalakshmi Ponnada and 64-year-old Nageswararao Ponnada died in the crash.
28-year-old Rushil Barri, cousin of Lokesh Potabathula, was driving the minivan. He also is among the deceased victims. The elderly were visiting their daughter Naveena and grandkids Karthik and Nishidha from India, the Consulate General (CG) of India in Houston said.
“An eyewitness over there took the phone of Lokesh. She told us that the accident was very bad. A few were dead and the owner of this phone is still breathing,” Ayyappala Bandaru, Barri’s roommate was quoted as saying by US-based news outlet WFAA.
“My mother can’t stand it. She just can’t digest it,” he said.
“We call it ‘Death Highway’ out here,” one person familiar with the area said, adding the stretch is notorious for rash driving.
The officials probing the accident believe a 17-year-old boy driving to Glen Rose attempted to pass in a no passing zone on the two-lane highway and he hit the minivan, head-on, in the northbound lane.
According to DPS investigators, the pickup truck was driving southbound on US Highway 67 near County Road 1119 at around 4 pm on Tuesday, when the minivan was in the same area, heading north.
The other occupant of the pickup truck was a 17-year-old boy who survived the crash along with the driver but both of them suffered critical injuries and were taken to a hospital in Fort Worth along with Lokesh. The DPS said visiting parents and both children were not wearing seat belts at the time of the accident.
Photos from the crash site showed pieces of the two mangled cars covering the highway. Broken glass and vehicle debris were scattered on the ground.
The Indian mission said the couple was working for TCS on an L1 visa and the victims were relatives of Mummidivaram MLA P Venkata Satish Kumar.
“Our main target is to reunite the lost loved ones with their families back at home,” said Ashok Kolla, Telugu Association of North America, told news outlet WFAA.
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