LISBON, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed early Saturday in a head-on collision between two cars in southern Portugal, forcing the closure of both directions of the IP2 highway.
The crash occurred near the village of Casevel in Castro Verde, at km 387 of the major inland route linking northern and southern Portugal, the Beja District Command for Relief Operations (CDOS) said.
One of the vehicles, carrying five occupants, caught fire after the collision, with the blaze spreading to nearby scrubland before being extinguished, a CDOS source told Lusa News Agency.
The incident triggered a large emergency response, with 34 civil protection and firefighting personnel and 16 vehicles deployed after the alert was received at 2:06 a.m. local time (0106 GMT), the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection said. ■