Deadly Canada highway crash leaves at least 15 dead
At least 15 people have passed away after a “severe” road collision in the Canada region of Manitoba, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said.
The collision was between a semi-trailer truck and a bus carrying primarily older people.
Police said the crash occurred on the Trans-Canada Highway about Carberry, two hours west of Winnipeg. Emergency units and air ambulances have reacted to the collision.
In some tweets, the RCMP in Manitoba said it was reacting to a “severe… mass casualty” crash and that all its resources, including its central crime branch, had been sent to the scene.
Emergency units, including an air ambulance and 12 ambulances, were deployed to the scene at 11:43 local time on Thursday (17:35 BST), the RCMP stated at a press conference.
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Most seniors aboard the handi-transit car were from Dauphin, Manitoba and the nearby areas. At least ten individuals, including the two drivers, are at the hospital with possible “significant” injuries regarding the “magnitude and force applied” from the collision, officers said.
The RCMP had urged motorists to avoid the area as some kilometres of the highway were shut near the crash site. A bystander told CBC News he saw a burning car in a ditch just after noon local time.
John Proven explained the scene as “shocking”. “I have never seen an accident that big,” he stated.
He said he even saw a semi-trailer truck nearby with a burned front end and that nearly 20 police cars and eight ambulances were at the road. A local air ambulance service representative told the news agency that the agency had sent one of its most significant reactions to the collision.
“This is sort of in line with the similar large incidents that we responded to in the past, such as the tragedy with Humboldt Broncos,” Blake Robert stated, referring to a 2018 collision between a bus carrying a youth hockey team and a semi-trailer truck that led to the death of 16 individuals.
Source – BBC
