At least seven dead in highway carnage
A section of Canada's busiest highway will remain closed until Saturday morning - at the earliest - after a series of chain-reaction accidents killed at least seven people on Friday.
The twisted, crumpled, smouldering wreckage litters more than a kilometre along both the east and westbound lanes of Highway 401 near Windsor, Ontario.
Police fear that more bodies may be found once rescue workers separate the cars, trucks and vans flattened in the accident.
The cause of the crash is being blamed on a "freak" weather phenomenon. Visibility on the road went from excellent to dangerous in just a few minutes when the road was enveloped in a dense fog during the morning rush-hour.
The fog, a mixture of pollution and humidity, developed over Detroit and Windsor, and then quickly moved over the highway.
Drivers were caught in the fog before they could slow down or react to the situation. Many cars ended up in the ditches on the side of the highway. Others slammed into each other, setting off a horrible chain-reaction on the road.
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It was in that section that six of the victims were found. A spokesman for the Ontario Provincial Police, Staff-Sgt. Doug Babbit, said the number of dead "could go higher. We won't know until we get into the vehicles and pull out the victims."
The other victim was killed in a separate collision.
In the midst of the carnage were selfless acts of heroism. Nearby residents and those lucky enough to avoid the various pileups, rushed to pull others from the twisted wreckage.
Kirk Walstead told CBC Newsworld he joined with a group trying to save travellers from Detroit trapped in their car under a transport truck.
"It was just a tangled mess. I didn't even know what we were pulling," he said. One woman was saved. Another woman died.
Another rescuer told of trying to save a mother and daughter. The mother got out, but the rescuers couldn't get to the girl before the vehicle was consumed by flames.
Firefighters had trouble getting to the scene because of the enormity of the accident, 62 vehicles in all.
One fire truck drove across a farm field to get to the scene.
Thirty-four people were taken to area hospitals.
The stretch of the 401 where the accident occurred is just west of another section of the highway called "killer highway." In the past year 13 people have been killed in road accidents along that stretch, prompting calls for a redesign of the highway.
Ontario Transportation Minister David Turnbull just recently received a report on that section of the highway. On Friday he refused to answer questions about the highway's condition. "There were indications that there was some aggressive driving and fog," he told reporters at Queen's Park. "I await the report of the OPP. I'm not going to speculate on it now."