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ACCIDENT

100-car pile-up kills one, leaves dozens injured

One person died and more than 40 were injured on the E4 motorway near Helsingborg, southwestern Sweden, after an estimated 100 vehicles crashed into one another due to dense fog and slippery road conditions.

Published: 15 January 2013 12:33 CET
Updated: 15 January 2013 23:49 CET
100-car pile-up kills one, leaves dozens injured

“It’s the worst accident I’ve seen during my 30 years in this line of work,” emergency worker Jonas Hellsten told the local Helsingbord Dagbladet newspaper.

The accident left one person dead, according to police, while 46 people were hospitalized, four of whom had serious injuries and 10 of whom had broken bones. Three firefighters were also among the injured.

Those injured were rushed to hospitals in Helsingborg, Ängelholm and Kristianstad

The crash took place shortly before midday on the Tranarpsbron bridge just northeast of Helsingborg.

RELATED PHOTO GALLERY: Pictures from the scene of the crash

Slippery road conditions and poor visibility due to fog are to blame, police told the TT news agency.

“The scene is pretty chaotic,” head fire fighter Christer Haraldsson told the TT news agency.

“Several people are stuck in their cars. We have a large number of ambulances on their way and we are sending a bus to evacuate the area.”

Emergency crews estimate the wreck involved approximately 100 vehicles, but exact figures remain hard to come by.

A press photographer on the scene said the scene of the accident “stretches as far as the eye can see” and involves cars on both sides of the motorway.

“I can see how an emergency services fuel truck has crashed into a truck, which is now lying across the lanes,” Scanpix photographer Björn Lindgren told TT.

“On the other side, I can see two trucks that have rammed into one another, tearing the load from one.”

Haraldsson confirmed that an emergency service fuel truck was involved in the crash.

The E4 has been closed in both directions while rescue crews continue their work, and it remains unclear when the road will reopen.

Throughout much of the day, officials were reporting three people had died in the crash, but late on Tuesday night police issued a correction on their website, confirming that one person, had died.

SEE ALSO: Cleaning lady steals train and crashes into house

Elsewhere, around ten vehicles were involved in a crash on the E20 motorway northwest of Eskilstuna in central Sweden.

The wreck stopped southbound traffic on the E20, and one person sustained minor injuries.

Snow continued to fall across much of the country on Tuesday, causing a number of accidents on Swedish roadways, with 33 being reported in Stockholm county alone.

TT/The Local/at

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ACCIDENT

Cable car survivor must be returned to family in Italy, Israel court rules

An Israeli court ruled Monday that a boy whose parents died in an Italian cable car crash be returned to family in Italy, after his grandfather was accused of illegally bringing him to Israel.

Published: 25 October 2021 17:39 CEST
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021
Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

READ ALSO:

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.   

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