With reporting from Chantelle D’mello
Updated at 11:15am and 10pm with more information about the deceased.
Five people in Qatar, including a one-year-old child, were killed yesterday afternoon after being involved in a fiery car accident near Hamad International Airport.
The deceased are among eight people who died in car crashes in Qatar over the Eid holiday weekend.
The Peninsula reports that the victims were traveling in a small car Nissan Pathfinder along the Corniche-Wakrah highway and were hit from behind by an SUV. The newspaper states that the “impact of the collision was so powerful that the ill-fated smaller car caught fire.”
The accident took place shortly before 1pm.
Gulf Times reports that the people struck by the SUV were Filipino, but it is taking time to identify the deceased due to the nature of the accident:
“A Philippine embassy official, who visited the Hamad hospital mortuary, told Gulf Times that all bodies have been charred beyond recognition.
‘The bodies have so badly been burnt that even the gender of the deceased could not be verified. Forensic examination would be required to identify the victims,’ he said.
One Filipino woman who was also in the small car and one Qatari man driving the SUV were also thought to be involved in the accident, and they were taken to the hospital with injuries.
Several Qatar residents who observed the accident yesterday advised commuters to proceed with caution:
https://twitter.com/Yancheto/status/519067467574824960
Huge accident before Hamad international airport. The car burned. More than 20 police cars and fire trucks are there. Be careful.@dohanews
— Elyan Mouarkesh (@emouarkesh) October 6, 2014
When reached for comment this morning, a number of Philippines embassy officials declined to confirm to Doha News the nationalities of the deceased.
But the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed the deaths today. A DFA spokesman was quoted by the Inquirer as saying:
“Three fatalities (were) a family based in Qatar while the other two are Saudi Arabia-based nurses who were visiting during the Eid ul Adha holidays.
One survivor, a nurse from Saudi Arabia who is the sister of the Qatar-based family, is pronounced out of danger and is recuperating at Hamad hospital.”
Other deadly crashes
The accident was the third deadly crash reported by local newspapers over the Eid holidays.
According to the Gulf Times, three residents were killed in a car accident off of the Corniche early Sunday morning.
A Qatari, Iranian and Bahraini apparently died after the the crash, which took place around 2:30am in front of the Halul Cafe and involved four vehicles, the newspaper reported.
And a few days before that, an Indian man was reportedly killed when his vehicle hit a truck on Airport Road, the Peninsula reported. The accident happened on Friday night.
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