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 Manitoba RCMP stated in a number of tweets that it was responding to a collision with “very serious… mass causality” and that all of its resources, including its major crime team, had been sent to the location.
The RCMP announced at a press conference that emergency vehicles, including an air ambulance and 12 ambulances, were rushed to the area at 11:43 local time on Thursday (17:35 BST).
The majority of the elderly passengers in the handicapped transportation came from Dauphin, Manitoba, and the surrounding areas.
According to officials, there are at least 10 individuals in hospitals, including the two drivers, with injuries that are likely to be “significant” given the “magnitude and force applied” by the collision.
As many kilometers of the roadway were stopped close to the incident site, the RCMP had advised drivers to stay away from the area.
The scene, according to John Proven, was “shocking”. He declared, “I have never witnessed an accident so large.
He added that there were roughly 20 police cars, eight ambulances, and a semi-trailer truck nearby with a charred front end.
According to a spokeswoman for the local air ambulance service, the organization responded to the disaster with one of its biggest ever deployments.
“This is sort of in line with the similar large incidents that we have responded to in the past, such as the tragedy with Humboldt Broncos,” Blake Robert said, referring to a 2018 collision between a bus carrying a minor hockey team and a semi-trailer truck that resulted in the deaths of 16 people.