Second road fatality in rural Nicosia

An elderly man was killed in a road accident in rural Nicosia after his car fell into a ditch, just hours after an elderly woman lost her life in a head-on collision also outside the capital.

According to police, 84-year-old Georgios Arsalides was fatally injured when the vehicle he was driving along a rural road in Agios Epifanios, Nicosia district, veered off course and fell into a 50-metre-deep ditch.

Reports said the driver was trapped in his vehicle and was not discovered until the evening around 8pm, with emergency rescuers rushing to the scene and pulling the senior citizen out of the wreckage.

Arsalides was rushed to the Emergency Room at Nicosia General Hospital where doctors on duty pronounced him dead on arrival.

It was not clear how long Arsalides had been trapped in his vehicle, while police said in an official report that the incident was estimated to have taken place any time between Friday afternoon at 2:30pm and 8pm.

Arsalides’ death came only hours after an elderly local woman was killed in a brutal collision some 12 miles away, along the Akaki-Kokkinotrimithia portion of the western highway in rural Nicosia.

According to local media, 70-year-old Persefoni Andreou was a passenger in a vehicle driven by her 28-year-old grandson when it collided head-on early morning with another car driven by a 24-year-old woman.