The situation is worsening and becoming very serious following the road accident that occurred around 1 pm on the Strada Statale 125 var, at kilometre 14, in Solanas, in the immediate vicinity of the "Galleria Arcu Sa Porta" tunnel.
For reasons still under investigation, three vehicles – including a van – were involved in a violent head-on collision, which started a fire that completely engulfed two of the vehicles.
The preliminary toll from the accident is serious: two dead and 12 injured. Nine of them were rushed to the hospital by various 118 ambulances, while four others were treated on site.
A man died after being transported to the forecourt of a nearby petrol station, despite prolonged resuscitation efforts performed on-site by medical personnel.
The victim is Rodolfo Monaco, a seventy-eight-year-old originally from Rome but resident in Quartu. The other victim is Giuliano Ortu, a fifty-year-old from Settimo San Pietro, who died at the Santissima Trinità hospital, where he had been transported aboard a 118 emergency vehicle. They were traveling together in a Fiat 500, returning from Costa Rei, where they had gone to tidy up Monaco's garden.
The accident also involved four English people, a father, mother, and two children: they were in the van, heading to Villasimius for a vacation. They were taken to the hospital with several injuries, but their condition is said to have improved during the day.
The road was temporarily closed to traffic in both directions between kilometre 8 and kilometre 14.
Carabinieri officers from the Quartu Company's Mobile Radio Section, firefighters, and ANAS personnel responded promptly to the scene of the accident. Officers from the Burcei station managed traffic.
Four helicopters and a Canadair, coordinated by the Forestry Corps, were deployed to put out the flames that broke out among the vegetation after the vehicles caught fire .
Raffaele Serreli