Gardaí try to identify Kerry crash victim

GARDAÍ were last night trying to identify the charred remains of a man who died when a car exploded into flames following a three-vehicle smash.

The man, believed to be a Romanian, was a passenger in an Opel Astra when the car burst into flames after two collisions involving three vehicles on the Killarney bypass.

In a separate accident in Limerick, a motorcyclist became the 100th person to die on the country’s roads this year when his machine was involved in a head-on collision with a car.

In the Co Kerry accident six people were removed to hospital, with one of them being described as critical at Cork University Hospital.

Five of the people — three men, a woman and a four-year-old boy — were reported to be stable at Kerry General Hospital, Tralee.

Yesterday’s crash occurred on a straight stretch of the bypass, opposite Killarney fire station, at 8.55am.

A loud bang from the accident was heard up to half a mile away.

Inspector Barry O’Rourke declined to comment on local reports that the Astra, which had been travelling from the Cork side, had done a U-turn on the road and collided with an oncoming car coming from the Tralee direction.

A woman and four-year-old boy were in the car coming from the Tralee side.

The second collision happened when the Astra was propelled into the path of another car coming from the Cork side.

Five ambulances and two fire brigade units were called the scene.

The other people in the Astra were lucky to escape as the car went up in flames.

The road was closed for several hours as gardaí forensically examined the scene.

Inspector O’Rourke said: “We’re going through a terribly bad patch in Kerry at present. For several years, we had been below the national average for road fatalities, but we had 22 road deaths in the county last year.”

He urged people to slow down and concentrate fully on their driving.

The death brings to 10 the number of people who have died in seven road accidents in Kerry this year, compared to three deaths for the same period last year.

Gardaí appealed for witnesses, who can contact the Killarney garda station on 064-31222.

In the Limerick accident, a motorcyclist was killed yesterday on the Rathkeale Bypass in Limerick.

The accident happened when a car and a motorcycle were involved in a head-on collision at Reens Ardagh, about five kilometres from Rathkeale.

The dead man was in his 30s and from the West Limerick area.