Glasgow bin lorry crash: three of six victims from same family

Police in Scotland have named the six people killed when a bin lorry crashed into crowds of Christmas shoppers in central Glasgow yesterday afternoon.

The lorry ran a red light at around 2.30pm on Queen Street before mounting a kerb, striking pedestrians and finally crashing into a hotel, according to witnesses.

Jack and Lorraine Sweeney, a couple in their 60s, and their 18-year-old granddaughter Erin McQuade, all from Dumbarton, were killed.

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Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, Stephenie Tait, 29, and Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, also died.

Eight others were seriously injured in what The Times describes as the "worst traffic accident for decades in a British city".

Unconfirmed reports suggest the driver, who survived the collision, had suffered a heart attack.

"The bin lorry just lost control," said one witness, Melanie Greg. "It went along the pavement, knocking everyone like pinballs. A mother with her baby in the pram fainted. Apparently the lorry had just missed her and her child.

"The only way it stopped was hitting the building... It was such a horrific thing. There was noise, bangs, screams and everything."

Others said pedestrians were "scattered like skittles", with Christmas shopping left strewn all over the streets.

A photographer who was shooting a video in George Square likened the scene to a warzone. "I saw someone thrown into the air and others lying on the ground," he said. "I witnessed a woman being told that her sister had died. It was horrific."

Supt Stewart Carle of Police Scotland said he wanted to reassure people it was a road traffic accident and "nothing more sinister".

It comes just a year after ten people died when a police helicopter plummeted into the roof of the Clutha Vaults in Stockwell Street on the banks of the River Clyde.

Scotland's First Minister and Glasgow MSP Nicola Sturgeon paid tribute to the "absolutely remarkable" response of the people of Glasgow.

"Everybody knows it is a city with a big, big heart," she told BBC Radio Scotland. "This morning it is a city with a broken heart but it will get through this as it got through the Clutha tragedy."