Five people died this Friday at around 18:00 in a head-on collision between a jeep and a freight truck. The crash occurred at kilometer 26 of Route B710, in the municipality of Taltal, Antofagasta Region.
According to Cooperativa, four of those killed were women. Their identities and the relationship between them have not yet been disclosed.
Route B710 connects Taltal with the coastal town of Paposo, farther north. La Tercera reported that the jeep and the truck collided head-on for reasons that are still under investigation.
Teams from the Emergency Medical Care Service (SAMU), Carabineros, firefighters and municipal staff arrived at the scene and confirmed the deaths. They also treated a sixth person, who suffered injuries of varying severity that were not life-threatening, according to the same outlet. The sources do not specify which of the two vehicles the person was traveling in.
Héctor Trujillo, commander of the Taltal Fire Department, described what his volunteers found: "an accident involving a smaller vehicle and a larger vehicle, in which, unfortunately, five people died".
Trujillo explained that firefighters worked to remove the bodies from the jeep, which images from the scene showed was completely destroyed.
The sources do not report the truck driver's condition or the speed or road conditions at the time of the crash.
The Carabineros Traffic Accident Investigation Section (Siat) was put in charge of establishing the causes of the collision. No preliminary findings had been released by the time this article was completed.
