Baby girl is sole survivor in holiday crash that kills five

Police in Spain were searching last night for a driver suspected of causing a motorway pile-up that left three members of a British family dead and orphaned a baby girl.

The missing driver failed to stop after the collision involving four cars, including a hire car carrying the Eastwood family on a busy road in the Galicia region of north-west Spain on Wednesday afternoon.

Dr Nigel Eastwood, 40, a consultant anaesthetist, from Rough Close, near Stoke-on-Trent, was killed in the collision with his wife, Rebecca, 37, and their son, Alexander, 7. Their 22-month-old daughter, Cecily, survived the impact but suffered a broken leg and minor head injury. Mrs Eastwood's parents were flying to Spain last night to bring home their granddaughter.

Detectives investigating the collision, which left five people dead, said it appeared to have happened as the missing car was overtaking on a dual carriageway at the resort of Sanxenxo, near Pontevedra.

A spokesman for the Guardia Civil said: "The car did not stop after the accident and we are looking for it. The mother of the English family was driving the car at the time of the accident." Other reports suggested that Mrs Eastwood may have unwittingly turned into the path of another vehicle just before the collision at 3pm.

A man and a woman from Barcelona were also killed in the crash and a couple from Tarragona, near Barcelona, were seriously injured. They were all travelling together.

The Eastwood family were a week into a tour of Galicia when the accident happened. They had phoned friends hours before to say they were having a "fabulous" time.

Cecily, whose injuries are not life-threatening, will return to Britain to stay with Mrs Eastwood's sister in the Cambridge area until it is decided who should be her legal guardian.

Before leaving for Spain last night, Hammy Armstrong, Mrs Eastwood's father, said he had considered Dr Eastwood a son. "I feel absolutely devastated. It's bad enough to lose one child but to lose two children and a grandchild is horrific."

Dr Eastwood was a consultant at North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary and had been due to start work at Keele University's school of medicine next month. He met his wife, a manager of a pharmaceutical company, while at university and they married in 1989. The family moved to America when he got a job at a hospital in North Carolina, returning to Britain four years ago.

Dr Nick Coleman, director of anaesthesia of the North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust, said: "Nigel Eastwood was both a highly respected, highly valued colleague and a friend to many of his colleagues."

The Eastwoods had been due to go on holiday with the family of Dr Eastwood's childhood friend, Carl Hirst, 40, who was best man at his wedding and named on his passport as next of kin. A police officer broke the news of the tragedy to Mr Hirst early yesterday.

Joanne Hirst, Mr Hirst's wife and Cecily's godmother, said at their home in Worsley, Manchester: "I'm in disbelief. We had spoken to them on Tuesday and they were having a fabulous holiday. Suddenly they're not here any more."

The crash happened as an estimated 5 million Spanish holidaymakers took to the roads for their summer holidays. Spain has one of the highest rates of fatal road accidents in Europe with some 6,000 deaths a year.