Fifteen people were killed and 10 injured when a bus carrying senior citizens to a casino collided with a semi-trailer truck at a rural highway intersection in Canada, authorities said.
The bus was carrying 25 people — most of whom were seniors from in and around the western Manitoba city of Dauphin — when it crashed around 11:40 a.m. Thursday, said Rob Hill, Commanding Officer of the Manitoba Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Most of the dead were seniors, said officials, who confirmed that the drivers of both vehicles survived.
Ten people were taken to hospitals in unknown conditions.
Broken glass and debris littered the roadside at the crash site where the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 5 intersect in Carberry, which is about 105 miles west of Manitoba’s capital of Winnipeg.
Images from the scene broadcast by Canadian networks showed what appeared to be a large bus smoldering in a ditch near a damaged transport truck. Numerous tarps were stretched out.
RCMP Supt. Rob Lasson said the bus was heading south and there would have been a stop and yield sign.
As the bus crossed the eastbound lanes on the Trans-Canada Highway, it was struck by the truck going east. Police have not confirmed who had the right of way.
People in Dauphin, a city of about 8,600 people with a tightly-knit senior community, were still anxiously waiting to hear about their loved ones.
A family support center has been set up at a Lutheran Church in Dauphin for relatives.
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“Sadly, this is a day in Manitoba and across Canada that will be remembered as one of tragedy and incredible sadness,” Hill told CBC.
“To all those waiting, I can’t imagine how difficult it is not knowing if the person you love the most will be making it home tonight. I’m so sorry we cannot get you the definitive answers you need more quickly.”
Ron Bretecher told CBC that both of his parents were on the casino-bound bus. His mother is at Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg but he had not heard about his father.
“So [my] family’s just basically waiting for word,” Bretecher said at the hospital Thursday evening. “It’s just very difficult.”
Nirmesh Vadera, who was working at a business on the side of the highway at the time of the crash, said he went outside and saw a transport truck with a smashed engine on the road.
He saw the mangled bus engulfed in flames in the grass on the side of the road as first responders frantically tried to pull people from the burning vehicle, he said.
“It was burning and all the (firefighters) and medical help and everybody was trying to get them away from the fire,” he said.
For many Canadians, the bus brought back haunting memories of the deadly 2018 bus crash in Saskatchewan, when a bus collided with a truck, killing 16 people from the Humboldt Broncos minor league hockey team.
With Post wires
