The buring car in which a five-year-old Syrian child died earlier this month. (Courtesy of: Michel Hallak)
SAIDA — Two women died and a third is in critical condition after their car rolled over and caught fire on Friday, east of Saida. The exact cause of the fire is not clear, a medical source told L'Orient Today.
According to that source, the incident occurred at dawn on Friday, when a fire erupted in the car that the three women were driving in the village of al-Karya, in the district of Saida.
Olfa Association first responders said in a statement that they pulled the three women from their burning car and took them to the Ghassan Hamoud Hospital in Saida. According to the association, the car flipped before catching fire.
According to L'Orient Today's correspondent in the region, the car the women were driving was a Toyota Corolla. It is unknown whether the fire was caused as a result of faulty machinery, but Toyota has made several recalls over the last year, at least two related to fire risks.
In August 2023, Toyota recalled roughly 168,000 of its Tundra vehicles because of a plastic fuel tube that could rub against a brake line and cause a fuel leak that could start a fire. Then again in November 2023, Toyota recalled over 1.8 million vehicles due to a potential fire risk posed by "some replacement batteries."
In 2012, Toyota announced a global recall of 7.43 million vehicles over a faulty power-window problem that posed a significant-enough risk of causing a fire.