A bizarre accident, 2 smashed cars

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This big Border Police vehicle managed to do a lot of damage to two parked cars on a main street of my town early last Friday morning, thankfully without injuring any people.

Police were already there investigating, and this one was measuring distances with his meter measuring wheel.

A parked towing wagon had also been hit and was on its side. 

I really wonder how and why this happened.
Click one or two times on the photos to get the full "impact."
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A sad morning on the road to my village

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A head-on collision of two cars  yesterday on the narrow winding road that goes down to our village in the hills.
The 8:24 bus to Jerusalem that I needed didn't come into the moshav so I knew something was wrong and started walking.
After a 20-minute climb up the steep hill I came upon long lines of cars in both the right and left lanes just standing; the drivers had turned off their motors.

The two policemen on the scene must have rounded up several men volunteers.
They were pushing and trying to guide the wrecked car off to the very narrow shoulders while a delivery truck slowly backed up and tried to tow it with some blue strip hooked to the smashed rim.
The metal made a chilling screech being dragged.

After the first car was off to the side, I could see the other one.
Its windshield had the telltale round smashed glass at head height.

But I was glad for the metal barrier; perhaps it saved the cars from going off the road and tumbling down into the deep wadi.

I haven't been able to find out who was hurt and how badly  but I pray for them, there in the nearby hospital.
And I pray that all drivers  will have the sense to realize they are on a mountain road with sharp curves and that they need to slow down enough to be able to stay in their own lane.
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Vacation turned deadly

What a tragedy, but this time not terrorism. A group of travel agents and families from St. Petersburg had just landed in a small airport north of Eilat and were on a tourist bus en route to Eilat, Israel's southernmost city on the Red Sea. On a curve in the mountainous area the bus went over, falling over 60 meters into a ravine.
Some 30 Russians are wounded and 26 dead. God help them.
We just watched live coverage of the rescue on the Internet.
The small and secluded city of Eilat has a small hospital. They stabilized the wounded but can't keep all of them.

Soon the helicopters will be flying over my house with some of the wounded and landing at Hadassah hospital just across the valley.

Road hazards

It was a bad week in Israel for two families and two equines.
The Jerusalem Post reports that a man was killed and two of his family were badly injured when his car struck a horse at Mei Ami Junction in Wadi Ara, and a motorcyclist died after colliding with a donkey near Ma'ale Adumim. Condolences to these families.
It makes you wonder . . . .
This is an old picture of me playing with a jenny during my visit to Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land. Lucy Fensom, SHADH's founder and dedicated hard-working director, rescues abused or abandoned equines and gives them a better life at her donkey sanctuary. It is a recognized charity in England and the USA, in case you'd like to donate or maybe even "adopt" a donkey.

You can find other critters, hopefully happier posts, at our weekend meme, Camera-Critters.