Two men died instantly yesterday when their van was in a head-on collision with an articulated truck. The crash occurred at Castlewrixon on the Charleville side of Mallow, Co Cork.
The latest deaths brought to three the number of people who died as a result of traffic accidents in the area this week.
Yesterday a Public Service Vehicle inspector was examining the van and truck in an effort to ascertain how or why the head-on collision occurred.
According to gardai, the road between Charleville and Mallow was icy during the recent cold spell but had been gritted by county council workers at 1 a.m., some nine hours before the accident.
"Visibility was good at the time and we just cannot say what happened. The road had been gritted and the surface appears to have been safe, but whether it was a blow-out or whether the van hit an icy patch and then veered into the oncoming articulated truck is too difficult to say at this stage," a Garda source said.
It is understood that just before the accident at 9.40 a.m., two articulated trucks were driving in convoy from Cork on the N20 towards Limerick. It appears the van coming in the opposite direction suddenly veered across the road into the path of the second truck. The driver was said to have escaped unharmed.
One of the men who died was named as Mr James O'Neill (23), of Bakers Road, Charleville, Co Cork. The other man was a native of Kilrush, Co Clare, but his name has not yet been released.