A truck driver and his helper died when their vehicle rammed into a poultry farm storage along the Jessore road in Ashok Nagar of North 24-Parganas before landing in a ditch in the wee hours of Sunday.

Police sources said Buddhadeb Sen, 43, the driver, and his assistant Amit Sarkar, 41, were rescued from the vehicle’s mangled cabin and rushed to Habra state general hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Both the deceased were residents of Bongaon in North 24-Parganas.

The police said the incident occurred around 5am near a rail gate in the Maniktala area of Ashoke Nagar town when the vehicle was approaching Petrapole land port through Jessore road.

Sources said the driver of the truck seemed to have lost control amid dense fog when it tried to avert a collision with a bus approaching from the opposite direction.

“The driver tried to make room at the last moment and lost balance of the vehicle, which fell into a ditch before smashing into the structure,” said a source.

An eyewitness said the poultry farm had been demolished in the collision. “There was no other human casualty but some chickens were killed on the spot.”

An official of the exporting agency said the truck was carrying Alkyl Sulfonic acid loaded in plastic containers, which had been loaded on Saturday evening in the Nimpura area of Kharagpur in East Midnapore.

“The vehicle was scheduled to reach Petrapole for export of the Alkyl Sulfonic acid bound for Bangladesh. But it met with an accident on the way, which we heard of around 6am”, the official said.

Police said a probe was on. “It will take sometime to ascertain the exact cause of the accident. We have talked to eyewitnesses but they have conflicting statements. However, preliminary investigations indicate that the driver of the vehicle had fallen asleep while driving which led to the accident,” said a police officer.