Morbi Navlakhi Road Collision: Three Dead, About 10 Hurt as Truck Hits Bolero; Case Against Driver

What happened

Updated 23 October 2026, about 10.30 am IST. A truck and a Bolero pickup collided on the Morbi–Navlakhi road in Gujarat in the early hours of Wednesday, 21 October 2026. The Bolero was carrying labourers returning from work. Morbi News now reports three men dead and about ten others hurt, including children; Abtak Media and GSTV, reporting earlier, counted two dead. The injured were taken first to Morbi Civil Hospital and then, in the more serious cases, to Rajkot for treatment.

The sources describe the place a little differently. GSTV calls it the Navlakhi highway in Morbi. Morbi News places it on the Morbi–Pipliya highway near Barwala village, and Abtak Media says it was near the Pipliya crossroads and the Barwala area of Morbi taluka. These look like the same stretch of the road to Navlakhi, but no source gives a kilometre mark, so the exact spot is not fixed. On timing, Abtak Media says the crash took place at about 12 at night, while Morbi News and GSTV say early morning.

Abtak Media is the only one of the three to describe how it happened. It reports that the truck driver lost control of the steering, and the truck went on to the wrong side of the road and hit the Bolero. It says the Bolero, with 12 people in it, was taking workers from Morbi towards Bagthala village. Morbi News and GSTV give no cause. That was one source for the wrong-side version until Morbi News reported on 22 October that a police complaint also alleges it; we still treat it as an allegation, not a finding.

The people

Morbi News, Abtak Media and GSTV agree that two labourers died, and all three give the same two names. Morbi News says the men were from a village in the Malia area. We are not repeating names or ages here. The reports give different ages for one of the two men, and the families of working people deserve privacy while they are still in shock.

The number of injured is reported as 10 (headlines of Morbi News and GSTV) and 12 (the body of the Morbi News report and Abtak Media, which counts the people in the Bolero). The difference is probably the two dead being counted in or out. Children were among the injured. Abtak Media mentions a girl and a boy among them, and Morbi News lists two minors, so the reel’s “three children” is plausible but not exactly matched by the written reports. Two or three of the injured were said to be critical. Morbi News reported later on 21 October that one more injured man died during treatment, and its 22 October report on the police complaint also counts three dead, described as two brothers and a brother-in-law, with nine others hurt. That fits a Bolero carrying 12 people, the number Abtak Media gives. Abtak Media and GSTV published before the third death, so we now give three as the toll. It rests on Morbi News alone, and we have not seen a police or hospital statement.

Response and investigation

Abtak Media says Morbi Taluka police reached the spot, that the dead were sent to Morbi Civil Hospital for post-mortem and that police were working to register an offence against the truck driver. GSTV says Morbi Taluka police registered a case and began an investigation. Morbi News reported on 22 October that a complaint has been filed at Morbi Taluka police station by a 35-year-old relative of the dead, a brother of two of them and the brother-in-law of the third. It is against the driver of a dumper truck, whom it accuses of driving on the wrong side of Navlakhi Road near Barwala village and hitting the Bolero head-on. The report says the driver left the dumper at the spot and fled, and that the police have registered a case and are searching for him. The wrong-side account is the complainant’s allegation, not a police finding. The report does not give the sections of law, and we found no published FIR number or arrest. None of the three reports mentions the speed, the lighting, or a licence check.

The road: what is alleged and what is not known

The case came to our notice through a Zee 24 Kalak Instagram reel posted on 21 October 2026. Its Gujarati caption, which is all we could read because the video is age-restricted, calls Navlakhi Road dilapidated, says residents blame its poor condition for repeated accidents and asks when the system will wake up. We treat that as an allegation. None of the written reports we opened mentions the state of the road, and we found no official statement, repair order, earlier-accident count or complaint record for this stretch. The one cause that is reported, the truck crossing to the wrong side, is a driving event and not a road defect.

The honest position is this. A collision on a two-lane road between a heavy truck and a vehicle full of workers is dangerous whatever the surface. Whether potholes or broken edges played any part is not established. We will update this page if the district administration, the police or the Roads and Buildings Department says anything on the road.

Why this matters

Industrial districts like Morbi send a steady stream of trucks along narrow roads to the port and the ceramic units, and the same roads carry workers packed into pickups. A head-on collision between a truck and a light vehicle is the worst case for the smaller vehicle, because the force goes straight into the cabin or the open load area. When people sit in the open back of a pickup, they are thrown out or crushed against each other. We have covered a similar pattern on a damaged highway at Beed, where a car swerved to avoid potholes and hit a bus, and on the Ahmedabad–Vadodara expressway near Nadiad.

Lessons

• Keep left and slow down on a damaged two-lane road. If the road ahead is broken, slow down early and brake before the bad patch, instead of swinging out into the oncoming lane at the last moment. At night, dip your headlights and expect a heavy vehicle to come at you in your lane.
• Do not carry workers in the open back of a pickup. Employers who hire pickups to move labour should use a seated vehicle with the right permit, and no more people than the vehicle is built for. This is general safety advice and not a finding of the Morbi reports.
• Truck drivers: rest, and check the steering and tyres. Abtak Media says the driver lost control of the steering. Whether that was a fault or fatigue is not known. Drivers should not drive a heavy vehicle after a long shift, and owners should keep the steering and tyres serviced.
• If you see a crash, make the scene safe first. Park well off the road, switch on your hazard lights, and keep other people back from the carriageway. Our witness safe-help guide sets out what to do and what not to do.
• Call 112 and give a landmark. Gujarat uses 112 as the single emergency number, with 108 for an ambulance. On a road without a kilometre stone, give the nearest village, the direction of travel and the petrol pump or crossing. Help may take time on a rural stretch, so start basic care while waiting, and if one call does not connect, try again or call 108 directly.
• First aid for injured people. Do not pull a person out of a crushed vehicle unless there is fire or a danger of it, since moving a person with a neck or back injury can do harm. Press a clean cloth firmly on heavy bleeding, keep the person warm and talking, and do not give water to someone who is drowsy or badly hurt. Keep children calm and with an adult.
• Report road damage to the right authority. The Gujarat Roads and Buildings Department has a mobile app, Guj-MARG, where citizens can report potholes and damaged roads and bridges with a photograph and track the complaint. The state publicised it in July 2025, so check that it is still the current channel. A road inside a municipal limit is the municipality’s job, so also try the Morbi Municipal Corporation, and note the road name, the landmark and the date on any complaint. We could not verify a phone helpline for road complaints, so none is listed.

What is still not known

We do not know the exact spot on the road, the time of the crash to the minute, why the truck went to the wrong side if it did, or whether the driver has been caught. We do not know the sections of law in the complaint, whether the road’s condition played any part, or the exact number injured, which is nine to twelve depending on the report. The death toll of three rests on Morbi News, and we have seen no police or hospital statement. We will update this page as the police and hospital records become public.

More on Morbi: see our Morbi fire and emergency safety guide for emergency numbers and the local risks to know, and our case study on the Morbi suspension bridge collapse.