Illinois dust storm blinds drivers, 6 die in chain-reaction crashes
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Roughly 40 to 60 passenger cars and about 20 commercial vehicles were involved in the pile-up on the Interstate 55 highway in southern Illinois.
PHOTO: REUTERS
CHICAGO – A dust storm that cut visibility to near zero on Monday triggered a series of chain-reaction crashes involving dozens of vehicles on an Illinois highway, killing six people and injuring at least two dozen others, the authorities said.
Roughly 40 to 60 passenger cars and 30 commercial vehicles, including numerous tractor-trailer rigs, were involved in the pile-up around 12am on Tuesday (Singapore time) on Interstate 55 in southern Illinois, the state police said in a news release.
Two of the big-rig lorries caught fire as a result.
The crashes occurred on both sides of I-55 along a 3.2km stretch of the highway near the town of Farmersville, about 320km south-west of Chicago, the police said.
More than 30 people were transported to area hospitals with injuries, ranging from minor to life-threatening, and the patients ranged in age from two- to 80-years-old, the police said.
Montgomery County Coroner’s Office chief deputy Joletta Hill, confirmed by telephone that at least six people were confirmed dead from the accidents. No details were immediately available about the fatalities.
Local media posted video footage of the scene showing smashed cars and lorries crumpled against one another, some of them on the shoulder of the highway. The clip showed one lorry burning amid a thick haze of dust and smoke.
The state police said the pile-ups were caused by “excessive winds blowing dirt from farm fields across the highway, resulting in zero visibility”.
A 27km stretch of the highway remained closed in both directions for several hours, they added. REUTERS
