Seven foreigners killed in car collision in Spain: officials

Seven people were killed on Saturday when two cars collided on a highway near Figueras in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia, officials said.

Five of the victims were travelling at high speed in rainy conditions in a Volkswagen Golf when they crashed into a car taking workers to a restaurant, Jordi Jane, director of the Catalan interior department, told a televised news conference.

Jane said none of the victims was wearing a seatbelt. He added 5,000 euros had been discovered in the vehicle, which crashed on a road leading to the French border and dubbed the “bend of death” in local media after a string of accidents there.

Regional road safety officials said two of the five in the Golf, aged between 19 and 22, were French, two others Moroccan and one Tunisian.

The two restaurant workers killed were a Moroccan and a Colombian, both in their 30s, who were on their way to a restaurant in Perthus in the French Pyrenees.

The 34-year-old Spanish driver of their car was hospitalised, his condition said to be serious.

On March 20, 13 foreign-exchange students were killed when the driver of their bus crashed into an oncoming car in southern Catalonia as they returned from a festival in the province of Valencia.

The accidents are among the deadliest in Spain in recent years. In November 2014, a bus carrying pilgrims fell into a ravine in the southeast of the country, leaving 14 dead and another 41 injured.