American tourist dies in central Vietnam accident

Around 1 p.m., Austin Phillis Michelle was driving her motorbike on Nguyen Phuoc Lan Street when the truck driven by a 30-year-old man hit her from behind.

She fell on the road and was run over, police in Da Nang said.

The victim’s body has been taken to the city morgue and local authorities are contacting the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam to contact her relatives.

Police are investigating the accident and have not given out further information, including whether the truck driver has been detained or not for the investigation.

Several foreigners, most of them on motorbikes hit by trucks, have been hurt or killed in road accidents of late.

In January, an American man died in a road crash in HCMC after his motorbike was hit by a truck.

Two Germans died in February after their motorbike was hit by a truck on the Lo Xo Mountainous Pass in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum.

Road crashes are a leading cause of death in Vietnam, killing almost one person every hour. There were more than 17,000 accidents in 2019, which claimed 7,624 lives, a 7.1 percent decrease from a year earlier, according to official data.