RIYADH: Nine people — seven Saudis and two Indians — were killed in an accident on the Riyadh-Dammam highway yesterday.
The accident occurred early in the morning when a truck coming from Dammam ran into two cars coming from the opposite direction at Nuwariya, some 280 km from the capital. Seven Saudis traveling in one car and two Indians in the other car died on the spot.
The two Indians — Nizam, 32, and Shajahan, 31 — were traveling to Dammam from Riyadh to visit their relatives in the Eastern Province. Nizam is survived by his wife Rasmi and three-year-old son Mohamed Hilal, while Shajahan has wife Sheja and two children — Mohamed Shah, 6, and Fatima, 4. Both Nizam and Shajahan were running a restaurant in the Mursalat district, situated close to the Saudi Telecom Company.
Police moved the dead bodies to the King Fahd Hospital at Al-Hasa and the truck driver, an Indian, was arrested.
In another incident, an Indian worker who arrived in Riyadh by Emirates Airlines in connection with job, died in a car accident in Dawadmi, in which six others were also injured. The accident took place 20 km from Dawadmi, around 380 km from the capital when the van overturned due to speeding.
The deceased, Mohamed Askar, 26, from the northern Kerala town of Badakara, was being taken to his sponsor’s office when he met the accident. Others admitted to the Dawadmi Government Hospital for injuries were Thangacham, Jeyaraj, Umar, K. Saleem , Nazeer and Abdul Saleem.
According to doctors at the hospital, K. Saleem’s condition is critical and he is still in the intensive care unit. Dawadmi police arrested van driver James who was not hurt in the accident.
