FIVE people died in a space of 11 hours  in overnight  traffic accidents in different parts of the country at the start of the week.

The carnage started at  9:00 pm,  on Sunday night, Feb. 5 and continued until Monday at 8:00 am, and brings to 36 the total  number of highway deaths in the country in the first 37 days of the year

The first death occurred onn the avenue of Las Américas in front of the Restaurant Pizzería Leonardo de La Chorrera. A man was run over  at  9:40 pm.

The driver of the vehicle fled say authorities.

The injured person was  taken by ambulance to Hospital Santo Tomás, where he died at 1:30 am.

Melvin Guerrero, 21, also became part of Panama’s bloody traffic death  statistics, after he drove crashed into a tree on the Soná-Marañón-Asiento Bonito road on the National Highway at 12:40 am on Sunday

Tweny minutes later  in Vista Alegre de Arraiján, West Panama,  motor cyclist Edgardo Martín McLaughlin, 27, died after crashing into a residence near a school.

At 3:20 am , near f the Divisa checkpoint on the Inter-American highway, a triple collision killed Gilberto Gil Fordbersh a passenger in one of the vehicles heading for  Santiago de Veraguas.

The victim was  transferred to the hospital Rafael Estévez de Aguadulce, Coclé, where he died at 4:00

 At 7:00 am Monday, a crash triggered by a landlslide  in Loma El Volteadero, La Pintada, in Coclé caused the death of Ernesto Castro, 59, and  injured 11

Four seriously injured were taken to hospital Aquilino Tejeira.