Tupac Amaru Kwarteto in concert
Latin jazz by Costa Rican flutist and his quartet, 9 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro, info: tel. 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

The Flying Pancake in concert
Tico electro funk, 9 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, info: tel. 2288-4740, www.jazzcafecostarica.com. 

Colectivo La Baranda party
Photos, short films, music by Henna and 424, 8 p.m., El Observatorio, opposite Magaly Cinema in Barrio La California, San José.

Police and traffic officials are investigating the cause of an explosion Monday on the Inter-American Highway, which killed two people and stalled vehicles for almost 24 hours in traffic waiting to pass over a vital part of the road that connects the Guanacaste and Puntarenas provinces.

At around 2:30 p.m. Monday, three cars heading north collided on a highway bridge above the Lagarto river, which forms the boundary the two provinces, according to the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT).

Officials said the first vehicle, a van driven by two “foreigners,” was struck in the rear as it crossed the bridge. The second car was then struck from behind by a tanker truck, which carried several thousand liters of diesel gasoline. The impact caused the sandwiched car to burst into flames, which then spread onto the body of the tanker truck. Two riders in the middle car, Ronny Aguilar, 18, and René Umaña, 57, perished due to injuries and burns sustained in the accident.

As powerful flames emanated from the charred vehicles, firemen worked through the night to quell the blaze and to remove the tanker to avoid a considerably larger explosion. According to MOPT, area firemen were able to remove the tanker and clean over 5,000 liters of diesel fuel from the bridge by Tuesday morning.  

“The heat from the fire was too intense for firemen to enter the bridge yesterday (Monday) and last night,” said Omar Segura, a press officer for MOPT, told The Tico Times. “Early this morning they were able to remove the tanker and the fuel to assure that no further damage was done to the bridge.”

Segura said that after the vehicles and debris from the accident were removed, roadway officials and ministry engineers performed an extensive inspection of the bridge foundation and structure and deemed that only “secondary damage” had occurred.

By noon Tuesday, cars and trucks that had been waiting to cross the bridge heading north to Guanacaste or south to Puntarenas were again permitted to cross, as traffic police guided cars across the one opened lane of the bridge. 

According to witnesses, the first van stopped abruptly to avoid a hole in the bridge. Segura said MOPT had covered the hole in December and that officials are investigating to find out if the hole was uncovered or materials used to cover the hole became dislodged sometime in December or January.

Beginning Monday, foreigners with permanent residency in the country began receiving stickers to identify their status.

The stickers, which are placed inside passports when residency status is granted or renewed, are intended for people in “special categories” in the country, including, but not limited to students, academics, domestic servants and professionals.

According to the Immigration Administration, the new system is intended as a security measure to eliminate falsification of documents and to comply with specifications established by international travel organizations. The sticker includes photo identification, a signature, personal information and type of residency. Previously, foreigners with “categoria especial” had their passports marked with a stamp.

“The launch of this project, which we've been working on for several years, allows us to consolidate our efforts … to increase security in the distribution of documents for permanent residents in Costa Rica,” Immigration Director Mario Zamora said in a statement.

The Immigration Administration estimates the new system will apply to 16,000 foreigners living in Costa Rica.

Prices on a range of goods and services, from beverages to taxi rides, rose enough last month to bump inflation up 1.63 percent, Costa Rica's highest monthly price increase since August 2008, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC).

Driving the push last month were rent on homes and medical, transportation and education costs, INEC said. Transportation prices went up 3.52 percent in January, reaching a nearly 12 percent annual increase.

Last year saw price increases slump, and in some cases decline, leading to an overall inflation rate for 2009 of 4.05 percent. That rate was the lowest since at least 1977, when the country began keeping count, according to Aldesa, a San José financial consulting firm. The low inflation rate was the result of the global economic and financial crisis, which dragged down the cost of raw materials and, consequently, the price of many everyday goods and services.

Aldesa's market report contends that greater dynamism in the local economy will cause the inflation rate to continue to rise. January's Consumer Price Index put Costa Rica about a third of the way up to the Central Bank's projection of 5 percent inflation for 2010.

Despite the downturn in 2009, Costa Rica has among the highest rates of inflation in the region.