Northern Territory road accident: Four young sisters killed when 4WD explodes in fireball after colliding with truck
- Four sisters under the age of ten die in a train accident
- The girls came from the remote Lajamanu community in the NT
- Police say alcohol, drunkenness or fatigue could have caused an accident
EXCLUSIVE
Four young sisters, aged two to nine, along with two adults (presumably their parents) have died in a horrific road accident in the Northern Territory.
The six were from Lajamanu, a remote indigenous community halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs.
They were traveling in a Mitsubishi Pajero when it turned onto the wrong side of the Stuart Highway at about 4.40pm on Friday and ended up in the path of a triple road train loaded with fuel near Pine Creek, 630km north of Lajamanu.
Leslie Manda, CEO of the Central Desert Regional Council, confirmed that one of the adults who died had been a municipal employee.
A friend said the children were “all little toddlers, which makes this all the more difficult”, and that the “devastated” community of Lajamanu had held traditional ceremonies for the family “during this terrible time”.
The vehicles exploded in a fireball when the train collided with the Mitsubishi Pajero carrying two adults and four sisters aged two to nine.
The vehicle was on fire for more than five hours after colliding with the truck in the Katherine region.
Police said the ‘intensity of the fire meant that few human remains remained’.
Police said ‘nothing has been ruled out’ in their investigation into the cause of the crash – and that alcohol, fatigue, domestic violence or mechanical failure could have caused the 4WD to end up on the train.
Mr Manda said hundreds of mourners would flock to Lajamanu and the surrounding area in the coming days for ‘sorry camps’ for grieving family and friends.
The community is still reeling from the recent deaths of two adults in a car crash on the Buntine Highway near the Victoria River, 150 kilometers north of Lajamanu.
‘They just regret that. Now they’re starting all over again, but mainly for girls under ten years old. Just horrible,” the friend said.
The four sisters and two adults – believed to be their parents – all died in the crash, while the driver and passenger in the truck both survived.
The girls and two adults are from Lajamanu (above), a small desert community halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
The impact caused the truck to erupt into a fireball that engulfed both vehicles and made it impossible for the truck driver to attempt to remove the passengers.
An onlooker told Nine News that when the road train driver ‘tried to help the family… he just got away with his life, I will never forget the look on his face’.
NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy said police had “never seen anything like” the scale of the accident.
“Although we call it an accident, it’s not really an accident,” he said.
“There’s some kind of element involved that can contribute to that, whether it’s mechanical, it can be a road surface, it can be a roadway, a human.”
The accident occurred on the Stuart Highway, just a few miles south of Pine Creek
The police do not assume that there was a crime by the truck driver, who was driving with a co-driver.
“They have some injuries, but the psychological injuries will be with them for the rest of their lives,” Cr Murphy said.
Road train company Shaw’s Transport released a statement saying: ‘Our sympathy and condolences are offered to the family and friends of those who have lost their lives
“The truck drivers’ injuries are expected to heal over time and we are arranging supportive counseling for them and their families.”
The collision is the deadliest traffic accident in the area in more than fifteen years.