Workers crushed in sleep

New Delhi: At least 15 labourers have been crushed to death by a truck in India while they were sleeping by a road.

The accident took place yesterday near a village in the Surat district in India’s western state of Gujarat, area police chief Varadbhai Patel said.

The dump truck ran over the sleeping workers, killing 12 of them at the scene; eight wounded were taken to hospital, where three more died, Patel said.

The truck driver had lost control of his vehicle after it hit some sugar cane hanging out of a tractor trolley coming from the opposite direction; he was among those in hospital.