GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 27-vehicle pileup on the M5 motorway in Somerset, England, has killed an unknown number of people but initial reports list 5 dead, at least 43 injured. The accident occurred at 20:35 Friday 4 November at exit 25 northbound, near Taunton, with the crashes sparking a huge fireball. It appears that six trucks and at least 20 cars were involved in the huge crash.
Heavy rain earlier in the day Friday and patches of fog may have been involved in causing the accident, but police investigations have not yet clarified what caused the huge fireball.
At least 8 people have died with close to 100 people reportedly injured, some very seriously, following a highly unusual sandstorm that struck the A19 autobahn near Rostock, in N. Germany, Friday. The dark wall of debris was apparently due to a mix of sand, dirt from freshly plowed fields, dry weather and high winds, and it caught motorists offguard on the four-lane highway.
State of national motorway network, 2009. Fedro
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A new 2.8km stretch of the national motorway network south of Zurich has opened, filling a gap that connects northeastern Switzerland with Lucerne. Lucerne is now 35 minutes by road from Zurich on a good day. The federal roads office (Fedro) says the new road through the region of Knonau, southwest of Zurich, will lighten traffic on the cantonal and local roads in that area, and generally make traffic between northeastern Switzerland and the southern parts of the country easier.
But it will also have a negative impact on some parts of the autoroute, with the new connection likely to attract more traffic on Zurich’s northern A1 bypass which will only later be widened to six lanes, as well as on access roads to Lucerne.
Western bypass of Zurich, recently opened. Fedro
