Two on-duty water authority employees killed in road accident

AMMAN ­— Two Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ) employees were killed in a road accident in Balqa Governorate on Monday evening, official sources said.

The two men, Imad Younes, 37, and Hassan Kloub, 38, were on duty in Balqa Governorate, some 35km northeast of Amman, when they received a complaint from a resident of Subehi that he had no water, Water Ministry Spokesperson Omar Salameh said.

“The two men headed to Subehi with a water tanker but on the way Younes, who was driving, lost control of the vehicle and it fell into a steep valley,” Salameh told The Jordan Times.

Civil Defence Department (CDD) officials rushed to the scene and pulled the two victims out of the vehicle, a CDD official said.

“One of the two men was already dead while the second was still alive but died when we reached the hospital,” the CDD official told The Jordan Times.

Traffic Investigation Department Director Lt. Col. Basem Kharabsheh said the accident was the result of “wrongful overtaking by the water tanker”.

“The area they were driving in was very rough with narrow roads and crooked streets; add to that the heavy cargo of water and it was a bit hard for the driver to control the vehicle,” Salameh explained.

Kloub, who had been working at WAJ for over 15 years, is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters, according to the ministry official.

Younes, who was employed at WAJ for the past three years, was also married with two children “and his wife is due to deliver another baby in around two weeks”, Salameh added. 

Water Minister Hazem Nasser offered his condolences to the families of the two men, according to a ministry statement.

“These two employees were serving their nation and its citizens and we ask for God’s mercy on their souls,” the statement quoted Nasser as saying.