Seven persons were killed and three others seriously injured after two cars collided on the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway, also known as Samruddhi Expressway, in Jalna district of Maharashtra, police said on Saturday.

The incident occurred around 11 pm on Friday near Kadvanchi village, they said.

The victims were residents of Malad (East) in Mumbai and Buldhana district, the police said.

"A multi-utility vehicle (MUV) going from Nagpur to Mumbai and a car heading in the opposite direction collided head-on, resulting in the death of six persons on the spot. One more person succumbed to injuries at a hospital later," a police official said.

The impact of the collision was so severe that the MUV broke through the crash barrier and fell off on the left side of the road. Local villagers and police rushed to the scene to rescue the persons trapped in mangled remains of the vehicles, he said.

Dr Umesh Jadhav, a medical officer at the Government District Hospital in Jalna, said six bodies were brought to the hospital for post-mortem. Three injured persons are being treated here, while one critically injured person who was shifted to the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district died later.

Three of the deceased are from Mumbai, while as many others are from Buldhana district. One person who was shifted to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar is yet to be identified, he said.

The three injured persons are from Mumbai, he added.

The Samruddhi Highway is a 701-kilometer six-lane expressway connecting Mumbai and Nagpur. The first phase of the highway connecting Nagpur to Shirdi was inaugurated in December 2022.

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