Four garment traders fell around 30ft to their deaths after the truck on which they were travelling rammed into the guard wall of Nivedita Setu in Howrah’s Bally around 3.30am on Friday.
According to police, the vehicle was moving towards Ankurhati garments market in Howrah from Habra in North 24-Parganas along Nivedita Setu when the driver lost control and the truck rammed against the guard wall and overturned.
Six persons seated on bundles of ready-made garments on the truck were flung off the vehicle and they landed on Panchanantala Road below the bridge under the impact of the collision.
“They were all taken to Uttarpara State General Hospital where four of the injured persons were declared dead,” said a senior officer of the Howrah police commissionerate.
“The other two were shifted to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and then to a private hospital,” he said.
Police identified the deceased as Mohammad Kabir Atta, 25, Kaiyam Atta 50, Prasanta Pal, 47, and Alil Mondal.
The police said they did not have enough details of Alil but the deceased were residents of Ashoknagar in North 24-Parganas and were headed to a wholesale garments market in Howrah.
A preliminary probe suggests the truck’s driver had possibly dozed off while driving down Nivedita Setu.
Eyewitnesses told the police there wasn’t much traffic on the bridge early in the morning. A deafening sound woke many out of their slumber when they spotted the men lying near Panchanantala Barowari Puja Samity office in Bally and a truck lying on the bridge, overturned.
“Some of them were bleeding. Two of them were groaning in pain,” said a tea shop owner in Panchanantala.
“The police were alerted and the men were taken to hospital in two ambulances,” he said.
Senior officers said they would check the truck to see if a technical snag had resulted in the accident.