Three tourists seriously injured

All four people injured in a crash on Vesturlandsvegur in Norðurárdalur valley on Tuesday are foreign tourists. Two cars collided and two Coast Guard helicopters had to be called out.

“There were two cars coming from the opposite direction. There are two in each car and they are all foreign tourists,” Kristján Ingi Hjörvarsson tells mbl.is, who is the deputy chief of the West Iceland Police. “There were quite a few casualties, serious ones.”

Hjörvarsson says that the collision was very violent and three of the four people in the vehicles were taken by helicopter to Landspítali hospital in Reykjavík. The fourth was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Not bad weather or road problems

He says he can't tell us the nationalities or the ages of those injured, nor the condition of those injured.

He says that the circumstances were not bad at the time of the accident – the weather was relatively good. When asked, he says he is not aware that crashes are more common on this particular stretch of road than on other parts of the Ring Road.

The road at the foot of Holtavörðuheiði southbound had to be closed and all traffic was diverted via the bypass route east of Norðurá river following the accident.