Four cars have crashed on the A47 this afternoon causing the busy trunk road to be blocked off by police. Two people with suspected back injuries have had to be cut free by fire fighters from two of the cars at the scene on a single carriageway stretch of the road near Sandy Lane west of Dereham.

A total of seven cars have crashed on the A47 this afternoon in two separate incidents just east of Dereham.

Four cars crashed on the A47 at about 1.30pm causing the busy trunk road to be blocked off by police at Sandy Lane near Hockering.

Two people with suspected back injuries were cut free by fire fighters from two of the cars at the scene on a single carriageway stretch of the road.

Emergency services were still at the scene before 3pm trying to remove vehicles from the road to let traffic back through.

The four cars involved were a grey Vauxhall Zafira, a white Peugeot, a blue Land Rover and a gold and brown Mitsubishi, police said. The two casualties were freed from two separate cars by fire fighters called in from Dereham, Norwich and Earlham. There were also two walking wounded, police said.

In a second crash, which happened just before 3pm, three vehicles were in collision on the Norwich-bound dual carriageway section of the A47 at East Tuddenham, just a few miles up the road from the other crash at Hockering.

It was believed one person is trapped in one of the cars. The fire crews from Norwich and Dereham attending the earlier crash have now been sent to the second collision.