Lakhisarai, Aug. 3 (PTI): Forty labourers were killed and 15 injured when an overloaded truck carrying them veered off a culvert and plunged into a small river in Bihar’s Lakhisarai district.

“The incident took place at 9.15pm yesterday when about 50 labourers were returning home to Mansi in Khagaria district,” superintendent of police Siddheshwar Prasad Shukla told PTI.

The farm labourers had gone to Akauni village for sowing paddy and were returning home in the truck with sacks of foodgrain they earned as wages.

The driver lost control of the vehicle on the ramshackle culvert without railings and the truck plunged into the Gorhi river in Ghongsa village of the district, Shukla said.

Most of them died after being crushed beneath the truck and foodgrain sacks as the vehicle overturned. There was little water in the river, he said.

All the 35 bodies and 15 survivors have been taken out, he said, adding the injured were rushed to a government hospital at Sikandra in nearby Jamui district. “Of the 10 seriously wounded, five died battling for life at the hospital, Others are still battling for life in the hospital. The bodies have been sent for post-mortem,” said Shukla.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today ordered a probe into the accident.

“I have asked chief secretary R.J.M. Pillai to probe into the matter,” Nitish said, adding the state government had sanctioned an ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh to next of kin of the deceased.