British tourists’ Land Cruiser was being ‘driven wildly and speeding’ before it plunged off bridge
Three British tourists including a child were killed thebritishherald
Three British tourists including a child were killed when the SUV they were inside plunged off a bridge in Iceland today after it was driven ‘wildly’, it’s been claimed.
A further four Britons – two of them children – were critically injured in the incident, which took place at the road crossing over Skeidararsandur, a vast sand plain in southern Iceland, at around 9.30am.
The seven-seat Toyota Land Cruiser was carrying four adults and three children, thought to be from two families, when it crashed through barriers and fell more than 26ft off the bridge in freezing temperatures nearly two hours before sunrise.
The SUV is said to have overtaken cars at above the 50mph speed limit as it drove towards the single-track bridge.
Tour guide Adolf Ingi Erlingsson found the ruined Toyota 4×4 on the river bank following the smash. He told The Sun: ‘People say they had been overtaken by the Toyota being driven wildly at very high speed.’
The victims of the crash were of Asian origin and British nationals, according to authorities, who said they were two couples, an eight-year-old girl, a nine-year-old boy and an infant. It is not yet clear which of the passengers died.
Tour guide Adolf Erlingsson was among the first on the scene in a barren, rocky area of the country known as the ‘black desert’. He said four people were outside the car, one of whom was dead. Another three were trapped inside, only one of whom was alive.
‘It was horrible,’ he said. ‘The car seemed to have hit the ground many meters from where it stopped. We struggled getting everyone out.’
