HAFR AL-BATIN, 17 October 2007 — Twenty-one people were killed and 11 others injured in three separate road accidents, inclduing a head-on collision that wiped out a 16-member family in this north-central city on Monday.
In the first accident, a vehicle carrying 16 members of a single family slammed head-on into a trailer truck on the Samuda highway at a location 210 km away from Hafr Al-Batin, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
The family was returning from Hail after visiting relatives on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr. An Arab national was driving the truck, which was heading for Qassim to take cement to Kuwait. The truck was reportedly speeding into oncoming traffic to make a pass on a two-lane highway.
All passengers in the car, who included a man, his two wives and 13 children, died on the spot. Another son of the family and his wife were traveling behind the ill-fated vehicle in a separate car.
The victims’ bodies were taken to King Khaled General Hospital in Hafr Al-Batin. The truck driver sustained only light injuries, according to Dr. Abdullah Al-Muhaimid, director of the hospital.
The names of the accident victims or the driver were not given.
Meanwhile, five people died and eight injured when three speeding cars on the Sabya-Qauz road overtook in a wrong manner resulting in a pile-up early yesterday.
According to a police statement, “speeding and reckless driving by one of the drivers of the three cars caused the fatal accident.”
The bodies are kept at the Sabya General Hospital. Police identified the dead as Ibrahim ibn Hassan Hattan, 45, Hassan ibn Muhammad Hattan, 37, Jarada Jaradi, 60, Wael ibn Majid Jaradi, 4, and Fatima Jaradi, 2.
In another accident reported from Hafr Al-Batin on Monday, a Saudi and his expatriate driver escaped with minor injuries when their car hit the rear of a truck carrying petrol.
