Seven killed in car-trailer truck collision in Karak

AMMAN — Seven people were killed and two others injured on Sunday in two separate road accidents in the southern region, official sources said. 

In one incident, five people riding in the same car were instantly killed when their vehicle collided head-on with a trailer truck coming from the other direction near the Swaqa Detention and Rehabilitation Centre in Karak, some 140km south of Amman, police and Civil Defence Department (CDD) officials said.

“There was road construction work in the area and traffic from both sides merged into one lane, which played a big role in the accident,” a CDD official told The Jordan Times.

The official added that “wrongful overtaking might be the reason behind the accident but it is up to the traffic department to determine the real cause.”

“It was a horrific scene and our rescue workers struggled to pull the bodies out from the car,” the CDD official said.

A police official said an investigation committee was dispatched to the accident site to examine the scene.

The truck driver, who was not injured in the incident, was placed under custody pending further investigation, a police official told The Jordan Times.

In the second accident, two people were killed and two others injured when their car tumbled down a steep valley in the Bseira/Grindel area in Tafileh, the CDD official said.

“It seems the driver of the vehicle lost control and his car veered off the street into a 700-metre valley,” he added, noting that it took rescuers some time “to pull the bodies and the injured from the vehicle because it was a steep area”.

The two injured passengers were taken to a military hospital and listed in fair condition, according to a CDD statement.

A second CDD statement released later on Sunday urged the public to exercise extra caution when driving and to “refrain from speeding or driving if they are tired, exhausted or sick, especially during the [fasting] month of Ramadan”.

Motorists tend to exceed speed limits in the period just before iftar, when Muslims break their day-long fast at sunset.