Dakar first stage canceled due to rain

China’s Guo Meiling’s damaged Mini after it ploughed into the crowd during the Buenos Aires-Rosario prologue stage of the Dakar Rally 2016.

An ASO statement said: “The organisers immediately deployed all resources available to the site of the accident: four medical helicopters, three medical vehicles belonging to the organisers and eight local ambulances”.

Her auto veered off the course 6.6 kilometres into the 11-kilometre prologue on a stretch of straight country road near the small town of Arrecifes.

The Prologue stage of the Dakar that runs from Buenos Aires to Rosario is primarily meant to set the start order for the rally itself, although the timings do count towards the final result. She is racing with the X-raid Team as competitor 360.

The Dakar, which was originally staged between Paris and the Senegalese capital Dakar, has claimed the lives of around 70 people since the race was first held in 1978.

Two were reported to be seriously injured, with a 14-year-old boy suffering pulmonary trauma and his father suffering massive head trauma.

This year’s event starts and ends in Argentina with an incursion into Bolivia after Peru pulled out due to forecasts for the El Nino weather pattern that has caused flooding and landslides in the past. Around 50,000-60,000 were expected to line the route.

Until 2014, two Argentine journalists in an accident died, have been since the Dakar premiere 1978 66 riders, spectators and journalists at the marathon rally killed.

Aerial view of the Dakar Rally 2016 camp in Carlos Paz, Argentina, January 3, 2016. “The race directors immediately made a decision to neutralise the race”.