A Boxing Day accident involving three vehicles on the IC1 near Tunes, Silves left one dead and five injured.
The accident happened at 17.00 and at 20.00 two victims were still trapped inside the wreckage as local rescue vehicles attended the carnage that blocked the road in both directions. INEM, firefighters from Albufeira and Silves, Red Cross, the GNR and a helicopter for medical assistance attended the scene.
The road was re-opened at 22.30.
Two of theose involved in the Tunes accident are children but are among those not seriously injured. The death brings to 13 the number of deaths on Portugal’s roads over the Christmas break. Over 1,300 serious incidents have so far been attended to by emergency services.
According to the police the accident happened due to a "miscalculated" overtaking heading north. The driver of the vehicle attempting this maneuver was killed.
In Évora a five year-old girl who had been seriously injured in an accident on the EN 114 on Christmas Day died in the Hospital Santa Maria in Lisbon on Thursday evening.
This brings to four the number killed in the accident between Évora and Montemor-o-Novo in the San Jose area of Peramanca.
A horse wandering in the road caused the accident. Police are trying to trace the owner.
The child was the daughter of the couple who died at the scene, Maria Antónia Ascençao, a 47 year old journalist, and her husband, 52. The other fatality was a woman aged 83 who was following in another car which ploughed into the first accident. She remains in intensive care.
Among the four serious injuries there is a 13 year old girl, who according to the latest information from the Santa Maria Hospital, is stable.
The other two injured adults who traveled in the same car, a woman aged 47 and a man of 51, who now both have been transferred from Évora hospital to Portimão hospital which is near where they live.
