Two Dead After Large Truck Plows Through Home Following Crash on Australian Highway

A large truck careened off an Australian highway after colliding with a utility car Saturday, smashing into a nearby house at around 5 a.m. local time when the family inside was still sleeping. Russia Today reports that the driver of the car and an 11-year-old boy who was sleeping in his bedroom were killed. The boy's family was trapped in the house after the crash and his 14-year-old brother, who was also asleep in the house when the crash occurred, was treated for minor injuries. RT video of the crash's aftermath:

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the crash in the Australian state of New South Wales has led Federal opposition leader Tony Abbott to say that completing upgrades to the Pacific Highway between Brisbane and Sydney is a bigger priority than the $50 billion National Broadband Network.

“This is an urgent national priority. The government had committed to getting this job [done] by 2016. I doubt very much that they’re going to make that deadline as things stand," Abbott said Monday.

“It is always a question of priorities, though. As far as I’m concerned it is far more important to get the Pacific Highway duplicated than it is to spend $50 billion-plus doing what the private sector could easily do with vastly less money with the national broadband network."

The Herald reports that the crash occurred on a single-lane section of the highway near Urunga, about 27km south of Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales mid-north coast.