Expatica news

Via do Infante – tourist bus and concrete mixer collide – at least four injured

INEM125A violent collision between a tourist bus and a concrete mixer on the Via do Infante left four people seriously injured this morning.

According to the Civil Protection authority, the accident took place at 07:54 on Wednesday morning in the Areeiro tunnel area, near Loulé, on the Algarve’s Via do Infante motorway.

The Spanish-registered bus was taking British holidaymakers from Praia da Rocha to Faro Airport.

Bombeiros, INEM emergency teams and the police rushed to the crash scene to care for the passengers and transport the injured to Faro Hospital as soon as they were freed from the wreckage. Eleven passengers were hurt and four seriously injured, including the driver and a nine-year-old.

By 08:50 there were 51 personnel there to help, variously from the Loulé, Albufeira, Olhão, São Brás de Alportel and São Bartolomeu de Messines bombeiros, Cruz Lusa, Sapadores de Faro, EuroScut, GNR, INEM and the Portuguese Red Cross.

Faro’s District Commander for Relief Operations (CDOS) said that some of the victims had been trapped inside the bus which carried 15 people.

At 09:20, four people were still trapped and two women already had been sent by ambulance to Faro Hospital.