1 dies, several injured in Cebu subway accident

CEBU City, Philippines—One person died while several others were injured in a six-vehicle collision at the South Road Properties (SRP) subway shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Senior Police Officer 1 Porferio Lim of the Cebu City Police Traffic Management Group said they were still establishing the identity of the fatality, the driver of a truck carrying empty soft-drink bottles. The driver’s license could not be found.

Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM) chairman Sylvan Jack Jakosalem said the accident, which occurred at 5:03 p.m., involved two trucks, two automobiles, one multi-cab and one tricycle.

Jakosalem said the speeding truck containing soft-drink bottles rammed into another truck, creating a domino effect.

Cebu City police director, Senior Superintendent Melvin Ramon Buenafe, said the accident also damaged four other vehicles – a Kia Sportage, a Multicab, a delivery tricycle and a Hyundai Tucson.

Buenafe said the driver of the truck carrying empty soft-drink bottles might have been unaware that the traffic inside the tunnel was slow-moving as the heavy rains had caused minor flooding at the southern exit of the tunnel.

All the vehicles were coming from the southern part of Cebu and going toward the North Reclamation Area.

The Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation said their paramedics took five patients to the Cebu City Medical Center but that one of them was already unresponsive.