TWENTY-eight-year-old Basmattie Prashad, known as Sumantha, of Bella Dam, Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara, was killed yesterday when a canter truck proceeding to a cremation site with some forty mourners overturned at a sharp turn at Walton Hall village on the Essequibo Coast. The mother of one had reportedly left her home yesterday morning to attend the funeral of a relative at Jibb Housing Scheme, Essequibo Coast, when tragedy struck. According to eye witness reports, the canter driven by Hassan Ally was carrying some forty persons to a cremation site at La Union when he apparently lost control of the vehicle while negotiating a sharp bend in the road at Walton Hall. Persons in the canter were apparently pushed to one side while the vehicle was negotiating the bend, causing the canter to flip over twice and throw persons onto the road, bridges and in a nearby trench.

Many sustained serious injuries to their bodies, while Prashad was reportedly pinned under the tray of the canter. Several residents who rushed to help said they did not know who to help first, because everybody was bleeding from the serious injuries they had sustained.
When Prashad was eventually pulled from under the tray of the canter, she was already dead. The edge of the tray had pinned the woman across her abdomen.

Another woman of Paradise village was also seriously injured in her eyes. Her face was badly swollen, and she is currently an in-patient of the Intensive Care Unit at the Suddie Hospital.

Some twenty persons were injured in the accident, but five have been hospitalised.