Crash kills 4 members of the same family

Umm al Qaiwain // The bodies of four Emirati family members were laid to rest in a cemetery near Hamraniya village yesterday after a fatal car accident in Ras al Khaimah on Saturday.

Funeral prayers were performed earlier at a mosque in the village.

"I understand the grief of the family members," said Adnan, a resident of Hamraniya who attended the funeral, but declined to give his surname.

"To have to lower one of your own [into the ground], and then turn and lower another and another and another, when all of them were alive a few hours earlier."

All four died in the accident on Emirates Road when the tyre of their Pajero burst. Officers said the cause of the accident was bad tyres and overloading, as the vehicle was carrying nine people.

The deceased were identified by Capt Seif Salem, of Umm al Qaiwain Police, as two sisters and two children - one eight months old and another 14 years.

Five others were injured including an Asian driver, a housemaid and three family members.

"Our police and rescue teams hurried to the scene," he said. "The mother was still crying 'save my children'. Doctors tried to calm her and give her first aid, but we lost all [four] before they reached hospital."

Police transferred the injured to Umm al Qaiwain Hospital, but the family later decided to move their only surviving child to Sheikh Rashid Hospital in Dubai.

ykakande@thenational.ae