THE A12 has been closed this afternoon from Wangford to Wrentham after three separate road collisions caused chaos.

THE A12 has been closed this afternoon from Wangford to Wrentham after three separate road collisions caused chaos.

One crash saw a car go up in flames with four young people having a lucky escape as they managed to get out of the car moments before.

In total six people have been taken to the James Paget hospital with a 19-year-old woman thought to have suffered the most serious injuries.

She was said to have complained of lower back and abdominal pain.

The drama unfolded from 2.30pm when a trailer carrying shingle broke off a vehicle as it turned onto the A12 from the landfill site at Henham.

It partially turned over and spilled the shingle onto the road, blocking three quarters of the single A12 carriageway.

Nobody was hurt in the incident.

Police said in the resulting traffic a 3.5 tonne Mercedes Sprinter white box van then collided with a Ford Fiesta and a grey Rover.

A young learner driver and her elderly instructor, in the Ford Fiesta, were injured in the crash and have been to hospital. The 19-year-old is said to have suffered “serious” injuries.

In a third collision on the stretch of road, approximately 1,000 metres northbound on the dual carriageway strip, a Renault Clio lost control and at the Wangford turning and crashed into the central reservation.

Four people, three young women and a young man, managed to get out of the vehicle shortly before it broke into flames.

They were all taken to hospital, with one young women thought to have suffered a broken ankle in the incident.

Anne-Marie Breach, a spokeswoman for Suffolk police, said of the A12: “It is going to be closed off for some time. There will some delays so we are appealing to motorists to avoid the area if possible but diversions have been put in place.”

A spokeswoman for Suffolk Fire Service said they had cut two casualties from a vehicle.