Indian from Singapore survives car crash in Japan, loses wife & kid

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Singapore, Jan 20 (IANS) A Singaporean-Indian managed to survive but lost his wife and four month-old child when a rental car he was driving collided with a lorry in Hokkaido, Japan.

Karthik Balasubramanian, 44, who was vacationing in Japan with family, lost his wife Lin, 41, and their daughter Aahana in the fatal accident that occured on January 10, The Straits Times reported.

He returned to Singapore on Wednesday along with his three year-old daughter who survived the crash.

The funeral ceremony of Lin and Aahana will take place on Friday.

According to the report, the car was turning from a side road onto the main road when it collided with the truck which was going straight ahead.

The NHK reported that there were no traffic lights at the junction where the accident took place though there was a stop sign.

Balasubramanian said the road conditions did not allow him to have a good view of an upcoming intersection.

"You can't see anything because there's snow on both sides... You just follow the road and keep driving," he told The Straits Times.

"So (at) the very last minute, like maybe 150m or something, I saw the stop sign. Then I started applying the brakes, but it was too late to stop.

"The only thing I could hear was my wife screaming in the car, like one loud scream. And I can still hear it. After that, I blacked out probably for a few minutes," he told the paper.

The doctors could not revive Lin, Balasubramanian said, adding that their child did not suffer any physical injuries but could not recover from the shock of the accident.

The couple's older daughter needed stitches on her head, while Balasubramanian suffered a hip fracture.

His sister flew down from India after the accident to support him and his daughter, according to the report.

Balasubramanian, who is originally from India, met Lin, a Singapore national, in 2006 through a mutual friend and they got married in 2014.

He told the Times that the "sound of his wife crying out just before the crash still haunts him".