A couple and their two daughters were killed in a head-on car crash in Romania while visiting the eldest daughter, who was studying there on the Erasmus programme.
The couple and their 15-year-old daughter had travelled to Romania from their home in Telde, Spain.
They were there visiting the eldest daughter, aged 21, who was studying at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu on the European Union’s Erasmus programme.
The deadly smash took place on the DN1 national road between Sibiu and Avrig on Sunday night, 4th December.
According to local reports, a 63-year-old motorist from Gorj County had tried to overtake a van on a stretch of road where overtaking is prohibited.
He had then entered an opposing lane and crashed head-on into the car in which the Spanish family was travelling, shunting it into the car behind it.
Parents Pepe Rodriguez, 67, and Maria del Carmen Rodriguez, 55, were killed instantly, while both daughters initially survived.
However, the eldest daughter, Alicia Rodriguez Rodriguez, died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.
Her teenage sister, Cristina Rodriguez Rodriguez, was taken to a local hospital alive but in a coma.
But she, too, succumbed to her injuries in the early hours of Tuesday, 6th December, despite medics’ best efforts to save her life.
Alicia was studying for a degree in Primary Education at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Her younger sister was a student at San Juan Bosco School, also in the Canary Islands’ largest city.
The motorist apparently responsible for the crash was seriously injured, according to local reports.
There were no casualties in the third vehicle, which was being driven by a 20-year-old woman from Valcea County, whose condition is unclear.
Canary Islands Government spokesman Julio Perez said on Wednesday that the regional government and Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs were taking steps to repatriate the bodies.
Authorities in Sibiu are investigating the case on accusations of manslaughter and culpable bodily injury.
On average, five people die every day in road accidents in Romania, which has the highest traffic mortality rate in the EU, with 92.7 deaths per million inhabitants.
In Romania, one is statistically more likely to die in a traffic accident than from drowning, suicide, fires, violence, or drug abuse.
