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July 10th 2008
NEW FIXED RADAR SPEED TRAPS INSTALLED IN MALAGA
The first fixed radar speed traps are being installed on the streets of Málaga city. The City Hall is installing a first group of four of the traps which will come into operation shortly.
They will be sited in the Avendia Andalucia, Avenida Valle-Inclán, Calle Pacífico and on the Paseo Marítimo Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
The traps are being installed in small gray boxes usually placed in the central reservation of the road, and under the plan there will eventually be a network of 15 across the city.
July 8th 2008
Footbridge collapses in Mijas Costa
six people were injured, two seriously when a footbridge across the main coast road collapsed.
The injured were travelling in three cars on the A7 motorway below. Six people, including a two year old child, were injured, two of them seriously when the bridge collapsed over both carriageways 198 km point in Mijas Costa. The accident happened at 4:55 pm when the busy traffic below was hit by the falling bridge.
The two seriously hurt are two men who were trapped in their crushed car by the fallen bridge, a 47 year old who was driving the vehicle and a 30 year old who was a passenger. The four others to be injured were a family travelling in the car behind. All the injured were taken to the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella. Witnesses say that a crane got hooked onto the bridge, causing it to collapse. There were no pedestrians on the bridge at the time.
The accident led to hold ups of 30 kms for a time, and complaints that the only other alternative route, the toll AP7 continued to charge for some time before tolls were finally lifted. The road itself was cleared and opened again for traffic at 1130 pm last night, after being closed for some six hours.
There are reports that another lorry hit the same bridge some months ago leading to speculation that the structure was damaged then.
May 30th 2008
Ryanair announce new service from Malaga airport to Glasgow
The new service starts on October 27.
Ryanair has announced a new route between Málaga airport and Glasgow, and will be selling tickets on the route on their website at 29,99 €.
The flights to Prestwick airport will start on October 27 and fly three times a week.
With the new route the company now has 12 routes from Málaga airport to Bournemouth, Marseille, Shannon, Dublin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf (Weeze) and Bruselas, with new services to East Midlands starting on June 2 and to Edinburgh on September 23.
Since starting operations in Málaga in 2003, Ryanair has reached 820,000 passengers.
May 6th, 2008
Tourist chiefs are now optimistic for the summer.
Tourism chiefs on the Costa del Sol are taking the high occupancy levels over the May Day bank holiday as a prelude to a good summer.
The Association of Hoteliers on the Costa AEHCOS has said that the Puente saw 85% occupancy levels in local hotels, and that the weekend has removed the memory of the poor Easter this year.
Occupancy levels were also high in inland areas such as Ronda and Antequera, and far better than seen at Easter. Most of the inland tourists are from elsewhere in Spain.
Apr 20, 2008
Nine tourists from Finland lost their lives in the dramatic accident on the A7 near Arroyo de la Miel, and 22 more have been seriously injured, including the bus driver and two tourist guides. An emergency number has been set up for those wanting more information - It is (+34) 955041861.
Nine people died, one of them a seven year old girl, and 22 more have been seriously injured in a coach crash on the A7 Benalmádena bypass on Saturday evening. It happened at 1950 at the 224 km point above Arroyo de la Miel, when the coach, carrying a group of 47 Finnish tourists, driver and co-driver, came into a side contact with a KIA four wheel drive vehicle.
It is a very fast downhill stretch of road and it had been raining in the area for most of the day. Eyewitnesses said the four by four tried to overtake the coach on the inside, and hit the side crash barrier when doing so. He rebounded from there to hit the bus side on which led to the bus driver losing control with the bus ending up overturned moving down the central reservation until coming to a standstill. It’s understood that one of the uprights on the central reservation crash barriers sliced right through the overturned coach.
The driver of the four wheel drive vehicle tested 0.50 milligrams of alcohol in his breath, double the legal maximum and is being blamed for the accident. This was confirmed by the Government Sub Delegate for the province, Hilario López Luna, who also said the KIA driver has been arrested. He is a 27 year old man from Málaga and is now in the Clínico hospital with slight injuries. His father was with him in the vehicle and he was also only slightly hurt.
The 47 tourists, driver, and two TUI guides, were all then trapped inside the wreckage of the bus, and despite the efforts of other drivers who witnessed the accident, had to wait some two hours before the emergency workers could gain access by cutting a hole in the roof of the vehicle. Later heavy lifting gear was brought in to right the vehicle. The coach driver and the guides are among the injured.
The bus driver has been named as 53 year old José Jiménez. His daughter told the Diario Sur newspaper that only that morning he had been talking to the family about the responsibility of transporting so many people. His wife and children spoke of his ‘professionalism and prudence’ at the wheel.
The Andalucian Health Service set up a mobile hospital at the scene, where a number of the passengers were attended to as soon as possible. The injured were then taken to different hospitals in the province – One youngster is in the Materno Infantil Hosptial where another woman has been admitted to the gynaecological ward, five injured are in the Carlos Haya hospital in Málaga, one of whom is said to be in a critical condition, five more were taken to the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella and the rest, some seven to the Civil Hospital in Málaga. Other people were attended to in health centres in both Benalmádena and Torremolinos.
The tourists were on their way back to Málaga airport from Marbella at the end of their holiday on the Costa del Sol. The coach was from the Tui España company, and had left from Marbella, picking up tourists en route in their return to the airport.
The road was closed direction Málaga for a time, leading to considerable delays in both directions on a busy Saturday night.
It is being described as the worst road accident in recent years in the province of Málaga and is the most serious coach crash seen in Spain since November 2001 when 20 pensioners lost their lives in Huelva.
Meanwhile three people were seriously hurt in another accident at 0330am on Sunday morning on the other side of the same A7 road just 14 kms away at the 238 km point. Here a bus was in collision with a car which is reported to have jumped across the central reservation into oncoming traffic
Feb 28th 2008
The Benalmádena ice rink complex which is at the centre of the Legionnaires outbreak which killed three people last year faces a hefty fine, with the conclusion from the judge in charge of the investigation that management at the complex is guilty of a serious fault. He has proposed that they be fined more than 60,000 € for failing to inform the health authorities that the refrigeration tower which was the source of the outbreak was in operation, and for failing to follow proper maintenance protocol, despite the fact that maintenance was carried out by a sub-contractor.
The judge noted that management failed to pass on information that Legionnaires was detected in the tower in May last year, which if they had done so, Europa Press said, would have meant the installations would have been closed down much sooner than they were.
Feb 13th 2008
A week of storms and levante winds has left the beaches of the Costa del Sol destroyed. The Environment Ministry has promised to rebuild the sand ‘immediately’ so that the beaches of Málaga province will be in a perfect condition in time for Easter.
The statement from the Ministry says in many cases the sand has been moved from one part of the beaches to another, and that such movement is normal and often recovers to some extent naturally.
The storms have also affected the fishing industries in both Málaga and Cádiz with boats stuck in port for seven days. Loses of over 1 million € are estimated in the sector with the fishermen describing the conditions as the worst storm they have seen for the past five years.
Meanwhile in the Algeciras area items from the half sunken cargo ship New Flame are being washed ashore local beaches. Although no oil is arriving itself, parts of metal covered in oil are arriving on the shore, especially on the La Concha beach where 24 tons of oil and sand was removed last week.
Ecologists have also blamed the arrival of dead jellyfish on the beach on pollution from the wreck
Jan 21st 2008
The UK holds onto its first place position for arrivals of passengers at Málaga Airport, which the Spanish Airports Authority, AENA says were up by 3.9% last yearwith more than 2.5 million last year, up by 0.3% on 2006.
The greatest increase in numbers, however, was in arrivals from Germany, France and Ireland, up by 5.7, 15.6 and 6.8% respectively. It puts Germany in third place behind passengers from other AENA airports, which were up in 2006 by 4.05%, EFE said.
Ireland was fourth, and France moved up from sixth into fifth place.
Jan 18th 2008
Enrique Bolín, the former Independent Mayor of Benalmádena, was in court on Wednesday, in a case where he faces a possible eight year ban from public office for an alleged crime of perversion of the course of justice. It relates to the ownership of as plot of land in the town which the ex Mayor argues was municipal, but the prosecutor says was private.
EFE said Bolín ordered municipal staff to clear the land, and it was later used to build a traffic track for children.
His lawyer argued in court that it was thought the land was municipal as it did not appear on the Registry.
Bolín ran the town for many years before he was ousted after a three-way pact between PSOE, Izquierda Unida and the MpB local independent party gave the Mayor’s office to the Socialist, Javier Carnero. The ex Mayor was charged last month in connection with the illegal sale of vehicles towed away by the municipal tow truck on the streets of Benalmádena. Dec 29th 2007
The New AVE high speed train gets off to a dodgy start
journey time on the new route has been set at two hours 30 minutes for non stop services and 25 minutes more for trains which stop enroute. 11 trains will cover the line in each direction daily, a number which is increased to 13 on Fridays and reduced to ten on Sundays and nine on Saturdays.
Ticket price is 76 € single, but there are discounts for advance internet booking which can take the price down to as low as 30 € 50 cents.
It came the day after the Zapatero also officially opened the other new AVE high speed train line from Madrid to Valladolid.
After the photos in Málaga the Prime Minister made his way to the airport and flew back to Madrid in an official plane, while the rest of the politicians returned on the train. A statement from the Moncloa said Zapatero had a ‘private meal’ to return for.
The 7,10 AVE service from Málaga to Madrid on December 26th arrived 40 minutes late as the train stopped short of Córdoba when it failed to correctly read the signalling system on the Sevilla to Madrid stretch of the line. This older track uses a different signalling method that the Córdoba to Málaga link. It meant that RENFE were obliged to return the ticket price to the 281 passengers on the train.
El Mundo has reported that the delay to the 2pm AVE from Málaga on Boxing Day was even greater, with the train arriving in Madrid one hour 40 minutes late. Travellers have told the paper that the train stopped and started on the Málaga – Córdoba strech, the TV’s did not work, there was no water in the bathroom taps, and the oven in the cafeteria had broken.
Currently on the new lines to Málaga and Valladolid RENFE returns half the ticket price for a 15 minute delay and all the ticket price for delays of more than 30 minutes. On established AVE lines a full refund is given if trains are more than 5 minutes late on arrival.
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