Oil tanker in India loses control and causes motorway pile-up

Images from the Pune-Bengaluru road showed mangled cars as panicked people struggled to help those caught up in the crash

Each year tens of thousands of people in India are killed in road crashes caused by speeding and reckless driving. EPA

The authorities in India’s western city of Pune are clearing the mangled remains of dozens of vehicles after an oil tanker lost control and crashed, causing a major pile-up.

A dozen people were seriously injured and taken to local hospitals.

The tanker's brakes failed and it spilt oil on to the road, causing vehicles to skid and crash. Sunday's incident created 2km of congestion at the Navale Bridge on the Pune-Bengaluru motorway.

“At least 24 vehicles, including the truck, suffered damage in the incident. While 22 of these vehicles were cars, one was an autorickshaw. Fortunately, there is no loss of human life in the accident," said Suhel Sharma, a local police officer.

Images on social media showed mangled cars, some left underneath the tanker, as panicked people struggled to rescue those caught in the accident.

“Our car was also hit," one of the victims told a local news outlet.

"We were four people in the vehicle and, fortunately, nothing happened to us as the airbags opened. But we saw that several vehicles around us on the road were badly hit.

Each year tens of thousands of people in India are killed in road crashes caused by speeding and reckless driving.