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Torrevieja and local areas Tuesday, March 29th 2016 - Edition 591
Another Black Easter on the roads Millions of travellers took to the roads around Spain over this past week. Unfortunately the provisional death toll from 3:00pm on Friday, March 18 until 8:00pm on Easter Sunday showed that a total of Thirty-six people have been killed in the twenty fatal traffic accidents on Spanish roads since the beginning of the special operation of Easter, as per the Directorate General of Traffic. On Sunday itself, no fatal traffic accidents were registered while the last of the accidents occurred on Saturday at 3:15pm when a 40 year old man died after going off the road on his motorcycle and crashing with his vehicle into a stream, in the town of Marinaleda (Sevilla). In the second and most important phase, which began at noon on March 23rd and runs
until Midnight on Monday, March 28th, there were eleven accidents, with twelve dead. In the first phase of the special operation, which lasted from noon on Friday, March 18th until Midnight on Sunday, March 20th, 3,450,000 vehicles took to the roads. In this period, there were twelve casualties, twenty four deaths. The second and most important phase accounting for those who started their holidays began at noon on March 23rd and runs until midnight Monday, March 28. The day is still a public holiday in the Balearic communities, Catalonia, Valencia, Navarra, Basque Country and La Rioja. In this period, the DGT expected over 11,050,000 vehicles to be on the roads and as we sent to press, there were eleven accidents,
Torrevieja's Good Friday Semana Santa processions
with twelve dead. On Sunday afternoon, residents in the Spanish capital returning from their Easter holidays caused major traffic jams in the provinces of Valladolid, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Ciudad Real and Toledo. The movement of traffic has been slow, with intermittent stops in the Northwest motorway, A-6, in the province of Valladolid, in a stretch of 85 kilometres between the towns of Villanueva de los Caballeros and
Ataquines. Valladolid also witnessed eleven kilometres of jams in the A-62, in the area of Geria and Tordesillas, because of an accident. A twenty kilometres tail back was recorded on the highway to Barcelona, A-2, passing through the province of Guadalajara, Alcolea del Pinar and Almadrones. On the road from Valencia, A-3, there have been eleven kilometres of traffic jams, passing through the province of Cuenca, between Montalbo and Saelices. On the
motorway of Andalusia, A-4, retentions have reached ten kilometres in the province of Ciudad Real Almuradiel and distributed in Santa Cruz de Mudela. During this special Easter operation, the DGT have had their eyes in the skies operational and been flying over the roads, especially using their conventional twelve helicopters of the DGT, eight of which are equipped with the radar system to monitor speed, called Pegasus. On the ground law enforcement agents intensified preventive controls for alcohol and drugs made by agents of the Guardia Civil Trafico and traffic surveillance with mobile radars in the sections identified as hazardous. During the Easter operation, about 10,000 Trafico agents, more than eight hundred officers and technicians from traffic management centres and more than 13,000 company employees and emergency personnel were involved.
Memorial Manuel Aniorte Pictorial on page 47 More photos on pages 6 & 7