A family holiday turned into tragedy Wednesday evening when a passenger car carrying a family of four collided with a tanker truck on the Nea Moudania-Nikiti provincial road in Halkidiki prefecture, killing a mother and her five-month-old baby.

At the same time, the father was declared clinically dead after suffering severe injuries.

The crash occurred shortly before 6:20 p.m. on the main route linking Halkidiki with the Sithonia peninsula, one of northern Greece’s busiest summer tourist destinations.

According to preliminary information, the family—believed to be from Moldova—was traveling toward Sithonia when their vehicle collided head-on with a tanker truck traveling in the opposite direction toward Ormylia. The circumstances surrounding the crash remain under investigation.

The mother and infant died instantly. Firefighters carried out an extensive extrication operation to free the father and the couple’s eight-year-old child from the wreckage.

Both were transported by ambulance to the Halkidiki General Hospital, where physicians later determined that the father was clinically dead and remained on life support, while the eight-year-old is expected to be transferred to a hospital in Thessaloniki for further treatment.

Police have launched an investigation into the cause of the collision, while traffic in the area was disrupted as emergency crews cleared the scene.

The latest tragedy adds to a series of fatal road accidents reported across Greece in recent weeks, including a collision between a passenger car and a fire engine responding to a wildfire in Laconia that claimed two lives, as well as several deadly motorcycle crashes in the greater Athens area.