At least 13 people died and 11 others were injured in a string of road accidents that occurred within a few hours across three continents on Friday night and Saturday morning, according to police and emergency services from Brazil to India. The separate incidents, ranging from single-vehicle impacts to multi-car pile-ups, prompted local investigations into their causes while survivors were taken to hospitals.

In Brazil, two accidents claimed four lives. In the southeastern city of Taubaté, São Paulo state, a Fiat Uno carrying three young men struck a pole in the early hours of Saturday; two occupants in the front seats, aged 19 and 20, were pronounced dead at the scene, while a 20-year-old in the back survived with injuries, police said. Further south in Iraí, Rio Grande do Sul, a head-on collision between two cars on the BR-386 motorway on Friday night killed both drivers—a 38-year-old and a 55-year-old—and left two female passengers injured, according to the Federal Highway Police. Investigations are ongoing in both cases.

In Europe, two separate crashes in Sweden and Germany resulted in four deaths. On Sweden’s midsummer eve, a car attempting an illegal U-turn through a gap in the central reservation of the Riksväg 40 motorway near Borås was rear-ended by another vehicle. The elderly couple in the turning car—a man and woman in their eighties—died while being transported to hospital; the driver of the following car, a man in his thirties, sustained minor injuries, police reported. In southwestern Germany, a dangerous lane change on the A5 autobahn near Appenweier on Saturday afternoon triggered a chain-reaction collision. After an initial sideswipe left two vehicles disabled on the carriageway, a subsequent five-car pile-up crushed a Smart car, killing two women at the scene. One driver from the first impact was seriously injured, while others escaped unhurt, according to traffic police.

In the Middle East and South Asia, further collisions added to the toll. Iranian emergency services said a head-on crash between a light truck and a Peugeot Pars on an old road between Parand and Soltanabad left three people dead and four injured, who were taken to Shahid Modarres Hospital in Saveh. Officials emphasised the dangers of narrow, high-traffic roads. In southern India, two young students lost their lives in separate accidents in the Tambaram district near Chennai. A 21-year-old college student fell from her two-wheeler after being startled by a tipper lorry’s horn and struck a moped, sustaining fatal head injuries, while a 12-year-old schoolgirl riding pillion with her grandfather was killed when a government bus hit their two-wheeler from behind. Both incidents occurred on Friday evening, and local police have registered cases.