Chennai: A road mishap claimed the lives of five persons during the wee hours of today on East Coast Road near Mamallapuram.
According to the police, a car collided with a private bus at Kadambadi, leaving the five Chennai-based men dead and 17 in the bus injured. The vehicles caught fire in the impact.
The occupants of the car who died have been identified as Sai Sathish, Netaji and Dilipkumar from Perambur, Karthik from Teynampet and Mohammed Thameen from Aminjikarai.
Sources said three of the five were management and law students.
The bus, with 50 passengers, was heading to Puducherry for a wedding reception, while the car was coming to Chennai from the neighbouring Union Territory.
The incident took place at 12.30 am and the vehicles caught fire in the impact. It took two-and-a-half hours for the fire and rescue services personnel to put out the flames.
The five men, according to police, died on the spot. The fire services personnel struggled to take out their bodies from the mangled remains of the car. Their postmortem took place at Chengalpet Government Hospital.
Seventeen persons, including three male bus passengers who suffered injuries, were also taken to the same hospital.
Preliminary inquiries revealed that the car tried to overtake another four-wheeler when the driver lost control and rammed the bus coming in the opposite direction.
The police suspect that the car driver was drunk.
The Mamallapuram police have registered a case and are holding inquiries.