San José, Costa Rica—A devastating multi-vehicle collision on Route 27 claimed the lives of three people on Tuesday afternoon, shutting down one of the country's most heavily traveled highways for several hours. The pileup, which involved two heavy cargo trucks, an SUV, and three passenger sedans, occurred on a notoriously steep and winding stretch of the toll road connecting the capital to the Central Pacific coast.

Red Cross rescue units and volunteer fire brigades from nearby municipalities arrived at the scene to find a chaotic landscape of twisted metal, shattered glass, and scattered debris blocking all lanes. Paramedics worked frantically to extricate victims trapped inside the crushed cabins of their vehicles, using hydraulic rescue tools to cut through the reinforced steel frames.

Traffic police officials stated that the collision appeared to begin when a loaded tractor-trailer lost braking capacity on a downhill descent, colliding with the rear of an SUV before triggering a chain-reaction pileup with the oncoming traffic. Three occupants of the smaller passenger vehicles died at the scene due to severe impact injuries, while four other motorists were rushed to local hospitals in critical condition.

The concessionaire responsible for Route 27, Globalvia, immediately closed the highway in both directions to allow emergency vehicles unimpeded access to the crash site. The closure caused massive gridlock across the region, forcing thousands of commuters to divert onto alternative, slower routes such as Aguacate or Route 1, which quickly became congested

Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ) agents arrived late in the afternoon to conduct the formal removal of the bodies and initiate a comprehensive forensic reconstruction of the accident. Investigators are analyzing the skid marks on the asphalt and checking the mechanical condition of the heavy transport truck to verify if a brake system failure was indeed the primary trigger.

The tragic event has reignited intense public debate regarding the safety and capacity of Route 27, which frequently experiences heavy congestion and high-speed accidents, especially during peak travel periods. Community advocates are calling for accelerated progress on planned highway expansion projects and more stringent weight and brake inspections for heavy commercial cargo vehicles.

Road clearing crews began the arduous process of removing the mangled vehicles and cleaning spilled fuel and oil from the roadway late Tuesday evening. Police officers remained on-site to direct traffic and manage the slowly dissolving queues of vehicles that had been trapped behind the accident scene for hours.

The names of the victims are being withheld pending official notification of their immediate family members, as local authorities continue their painstaking forensic work at the regional morgue.