A speeding truck traveling toward Mumbai rammed into a dense queue of stationary vehicles on the Samruddhi Expressway in Maharashtra's Buldhana district on Friday, triggering a crushing chain collision that left up to 22 motorists injured.
Five to six of the wounded remain in critical condition.
The massive pile-up wrecked between 15 and 20 vehicles along the corridor. It turned a routine traffic hold into a disaster zone within seconds, scattering metal across the carriageway and pinning occupants inside mangled chassis.
The crisis began five hours before the collision. At approximately 6:30 am, a commercial tanker lost control and overturned across the expressway lanes. By 11:30 am, highway police teams had established a controlled perimeter to clear the overturned tanker, halting a queue of 40 to 50 vehicles as a safety measure.
Then came the truck.
Driving at high speed from the direction of Nagpur, the heavy vehicle barrelled directly into the rear of the stationary line. The initial impact set off a violent domino effect through the halted traffic.
Police personnel already present at the clearance site pivoted immediately to rescue operations. Officers broke into damaged cabins and hauled drivers and passengers from crushed sedans and hatchbacks, dispatching all 20 to 22 injured individuals to nearby hospitals for urgent trauma care.
| Crash Metric | Samruddhi Expressway Pile-Up | Mumbai Coastal Road Incident |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Buldhana District, Maharashtra | Marine Lines to Worli (Northbound) |
| Timing | 11:30 AM (Tanker overturned at 6:30 AM) | 2:39 AM (Fire doused by 3:26 AM) |
| Vehicles Involved | 15 to 20 vehicles | 6 vehicles |
| Casualties | 20 to 22 injured (5 to 6 critical) | Zero injuries reported |
| Primary Cause | Truck rammed stationary queue during clearance | Speeding SUV rammed initial two-car crash |
Hours earlier, emergency crews in Mumbai fought a separate multi-vehicle pile-up on the newly opened Mumbai Coastal Road that culminated in a vehicle fire.
That crash unfolded at 2:39 am along the northbound carriageway linking Marine Lines to Worli. Two vehicles had brushed against each other and stalled on the blacktop. Moments later, a speeding Mahindra XUV700 lost control, hurtled into the stationary cars, and triggered a secondary chain reaction ensnaring six vehicles in total.
The Mahindra SUV burst into flames upon impact.
Firefighters, Mumbai Police teams, local traffic units, and 108 ambulance personnel rushed to the scene immediately following an alert from the Coastal Road Control Room. Fire crews cordoned off the carriageway and extinguished the blaze by 3:26 am. Despite the intensity of the flames, officials confirmed that all occupants escaped and no casualties were recorded.
Buldhana district authorities and highway maintenance teams completed towing operations by late afternoon, hauling away the crushed chassis and reopening both arterial lanes to regular traffic flow.