The Scene:It was "like a war zone". Ronan McGreevydescribes the scene in the aftermath of yesterday's series of M7 pile-ups The scene
The flashing lights of the pick-up trucks are the only indication of the carnage up ahead.
While traffic speeds ahead towards Cork and Limerick on the second-busiest road in the State, the scene on the other side of the M7 is like a premonition of doomsday.
As far as the eye can see, there are cars strewn all over the road. Most are either smashed from the front or behind. There are clusters where cars have gone into the back of each other. Many are up on the embankments or wedged into the hedges which mark the central reservation.
The front end of a Land Rover Defender, one of the sturdiest vehicles on the road, is completely smashed in. An Opel people-carrier is lifted on to a transporter, damaged probably beyond repair. A car is under a lorry and a motorbike under an Aircoach bus.
One off-duty garda surveys the back of his Mitsubishi Lancer, which is badly damaged. "I was driving at 10 to 15 miles an hour, but I could see the brake lights of cars up ahead.
"I managed to slow down, but the car behind me went into the back of me and another car went into the back of it. There were too many motorists who didn't have their fog lights on," he says.
Hours after the crash, motorists are still wandering around waiting for their vehicles to be removed from the road, but all tow-away facilities are overbooked and those that could make it have to struggle through the tangled mess of vehicles.
On the turn-off from the M9 to the M7, an articulated lorry that has jack-knifed is being removed by gardaí.
The starkest image of all is a cement-mixer which has clearly toppled over on to a black Toyota Camry, crushing all but the driver's seat. Amazingly, the driver walked away from the scene, according to a friend who witnessed the accident and then took him home. Among those caught up in the crash was RTÉ agriculture correspondent Joe O'Brien, who said the scene was like a war zone. "People were lying with injuries on the side of the road, waiting to be taken away. Some people are still injured in their vehicles," he said.
"I was lucky myself. I had to pull to a rapid halt. An Aircoach bus in front of me was involved in a collision with a motorbike.
"There were several crashes behind me as well. The girl in the car behind me was taken to hospital. I can look 100 yards up the road and there is another serious incident there. Just past that there is another again."
Motorist Ger Cunningham said he swerved to avoid the motorist in front and ended up on the verge. "I could see at least two serious accidents in front of me and two totalled cars.There were headlights and bumpers all over the road. It was one of the hairiest moments of my life."