JEDDAH, 13 April 2005 — A Saudi family was burned to death when they were trapped in their car after a serious accident on the Madinah Expressway. The driver of the car apparently lost control of the vehicle after one of the tires blew out while he was driving at a very high speed.
The car, an Opel, was carrying two women, a child and the driver. The accident occurred at 3:00 a.m. on Monday near the Usfan exit north of Jeddah.
Police investigating the accident reported that the driver lost control of the car due to a blowout. The car then flipped over a number of times, hit a street sign, burst into flames and came to rest upside down.
Three of the passengers burned to death in the car and the fourth was found under the car. The corpse was extracted from under the vehicle by civil defense personnel.
Said one of the fireman with tears running down his cheek, “It was awful. We had to pick up body parts and put them together — a hand here, a leg there, It was terrible.” The fireman said that the other three, including the child, were incinerated inside the car.
Speed is the no. 1 killer of young people in the Kingdom; the traffic department has made strict measures aimed at reducing the number of accidents and deaths because of speeding cars on the roads.
