THE WEATHER
See page 2 for the week´s forecast
Edition 343
www.thecourier.es
Friday 13th October 2017
TRAGEDY AT SANGONERA
F
ive people, including four members of an Elche family travelling in a Seat car, were killed and ten injured, in a 13-vehicle pile-up on the AP-7 in the Sangonera area of the Murcia region on Monday afternoon. A 38-year-old lorry driver from Totana was arrested by the Guardia Civil for allegedly causing the accident, which is the worst incident on Murcia’s roads this year. He was found to be driving with cocaine in his system, and has been freed on bail on the condition that he reports to a judge every 15 days. The deceased family members came from the La Zapatillera area of Elche, and included 56-year-old José Vicente Maciá
Segarra, who had an extensive background in local football playing for sides like CD Thader, Santa Pola, and Almoradi, as well as coaching youngsters at Elche, before leaving the sport to work as a painter. His wife survived the crash but his 14-year-old daughter; 16-year-old niece; and 48-year-old sister-inlaw all perished in the collision. The fifth fatality was a Murcia-area male driver in a Mercedes car, and ten other people, including three teenagers, were taken to the Morales Meseguer and Reina Sofía hospitals, as well as to the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital in El Palmar. The tragedy (picture from
the La Verdad newspaper) happened in the vicinity of Camping La Paz at Sangonera La Seca, with two lorries, two vans, and nine cars involved in the accident, which happened at around 6.00 pm. Reports suggest that the lorry ploughed at high speed into
the vehicles that had stopped on the road due to an accident further down the highway. The road was closed until the following morning, with specialist Guardia Civil investigators from Madrid looking into the circumstances of what happened.
FRENCH CHAOS AGAIN
R
yanair’s customer service has come under focus once more, as French air traffic controllers went on strike for the second time in a month on Tuesday, meaning more hassle for passengers using Alicante-Elche and San Javier airports. The controllers were taking part in a general strike called by French unions, with Ryanair services to and from Alicante-Elche airport being pulled in advance including links to Manchester and Liverpool, with the carrier also scrapping 10 flights at San Javier before Tuesday. Some flights were up to five hours behind schedule leaving Alicante-Elche, mixed in
with late cancellations. Ryanair’s passenger desk at Alicante-Elche (pictured in quieter mode early on Tuesday) was inundated later in the day with stranded passengers asking how they could get home, with some flights to places like East Midlands Airport being cancelled at the last minute as check-in desks were about to open. Irate traveller Marilyn Greveson told The Courier:“We left home having checked that there was going to be a delay of three hours only to arrive at the airport to find our East Midlands evening flight had been cancelled. We were told nothing and the mobile
phone text informing us of the cancellation did not appear until we started our 45-minute journey back to our accommodation.” Disappointed passengers, including families with young children, reported that they could not get replacement Ryanair flights until Saturday at the earliest, as hundreds of people
descended on the low-cost carrier’s information desk. Altogether Ryanair cancelled over 200 services across Europe, with Easyjet pulling 104 services to and from the continent. Many journeys to and from the region were delayed as planes had to be rerouted to avoid French air space.