Fourteen British holidaymakers were injured today after their coach smashed into a tanker on an Algarve motorway.
The impact left the back end of the truck embedded in the front windscreen of the coach, which was heading to Faro airport for their flights home. Victims were cut free from the wreckage. Three were understood to be seriously hurt.
A massive emergency response was launched involving firefighters, police, paramedics and the Red Cross, with more than 20 vehicles mobilised and the motorway closed on the stretch heading eastwards towards Faro.
Samuel Afonso, of Portugal’s National Republican Guard GNR, said the 14 Britons were on their way from a hotel in the resort of Praia da Rocha. He added that investigators were yet to officially determine the cause but he believed the driver of the Spanish-owned coach was momentarily blinded by the sun.
The crash happened just before 8am local time on the A22 near the Areeiro Tunnel between Loulé and Faro. Two passengers, both believed to be women, and the Portuguese driver had to be cut out of the twisted metal by firefighters before being taken to Faro hospital. The last casualty was not freed until 10am.
TV footage showed the vehicles crushed together and casualties being placed in ambulances. A local source said the truck was a concrete mixer and concrete had spilled into the coach.
A source at GNR, the national gendarmerie, confirmed: “All the passengers were British. They were being taken to Faro Airport.” The 82-mile long A22 is the main motorway in the Algarve.
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