Canada Highway Crash Near Winnipeg Leaves AtLeast 15 Dead
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), a “very serious” traffic accident in the Canadian province of Manitoba has resulted in at least 15 fatalities.
A semi-trailer truck and a bus with a large senior passenger load collided.
According to police, the crash took place two hours west of Winnipeg near Carberry on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Air ambulances and emergency personnel have responded to the collision.
The RCMP in Manitoba stated in a number of tweets that it was attending a “very serious… mass casualty” crash and that all of its resources, including its major crime team, had been sent to the area.
Emergency vehicles, including an air ambulance and 12 ambulances, were dispatched to the scene at 11:43 local time on Thursday (17:35 BST), the RCMP said at a press conference.
Most of the seniors aboard the handi-transit vehicle were from Dauphin, Manitoba and the surrounding areas.
At least 10 people, including the two drivers, are at hospital with likely “significant” injuries considering the “magnitude and force applied” from the crash, officials said.
The RCMP had asked motorists to avoid the area as several kilometres of the highway were closed near the crash site.
A witness told CBC News that he saw a burning vehicle in a ditch just after noon local time.
John Proven described the scene as “shocking”. “I have never seen an accident that big,” he said.
Canada Highway Crash
He said he also saw a semi-trailer truck nearby with a burned front end, and that about 20 police vehicles and eight ambulances were at the scene.
A spokesperson with the local air ambulance service told the news outlet that the agency had deployed one of its largest responses ever to the crash.
“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 said, referring to a 2018 crash between a bus carrying a youth hockey team and a semi-trailer truck that led to the death of 16 people.