Truck hits tree in Quezon highway; 1 dead, 3 hurt

LUCENA CITY –– A motorist died and three others were injured after a wayward cargo truck crashed into a roadside tree in Atimonan town in Quezon province on Thursday, police said.

Atimonan police reported that a cargo truck loaded with sacks of rice being driven by Zoren Buenaventura was negotiating a descending section of the diversion road when the vehicle lost its brakes in Barangay Santa Catalina around 6:30 a.m.

The wayward vehicle crashed into a narra tree along the roadside that caused grave injuries to Buenaventura and two of his passengers, Francisca Dyico, Roberto Eglobo, and Jerry Comoseno.

The four victims, all residents of Gapan, Nueva Ecija, were taken to Doña Martha District Hospital at the town center but Comoseno died on the way.

Motorists call the long downhill stretch of the diversion road as a “killer highway” due to numerous accidents that left several persons dead and numerous injured.

On March 2018, two people were killed and 15 others were hurt when a bus fell off a cliff on the same part of the diversion road.

Four months later, two motorists died and 13 others were injured in a three-vehicle smash-up in the same area when another vehicle lost its brakes.

In 2013, an eight-vehicle collision on the same downhill stretch left 20 people dead and 54 others injured./lzb