Hassan, May 29: Forty people were killed and 60 injured when a lorry in which they were travelling skidded off a tank bed and rolled into a ditch near Arakalgud, about 35 km from here, police said.

More than 100 people, including women and children, had boarded the lorry and they were heading towards Agrahara village from Basavanakoppal to attend a post-marriage feast, police said.

When the lorry was nearing the village at Arakalgud, some of them raised an alarm over an live electric wire hanging across the road. The driver, after applying brakes, then tried to reverse the vehicle after some passengers asked him to. In the process, the vehicle skidded off the tank bed and rolled into the ditch, police, quoting eye-witnesses, said.

People of the nearby villages rushed the injured to hospitals at Arakalgud, Konanakere and Hassan.

Most of the injured were admitted to Hassan General hospital. Some of them, who have lost at least two to three members of their family, were inconsolable.

Additional medical teams have been rushed to the hospital to treat the injured, police said.