56-car pileup in China leaves 17 people dead

Slippery conditions and fog are thought to have contributed to a huge highway pileup that killed 17 people in northeastern China.

The crash involved 56 vehicles on the Beijing-Kunming highway in China`s Shanxi province around 9 a.m. Monday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

‘The fog was heavy, so I drove slowly when I exit the tunnel,’ one driver involved in the incident told state-run CCTV. ‘I saw two vehicles horizontally blocking the road, so I stepped on the brake.’

It had been snowing and raining before the accident, which also injured 37 people, Xinhua said. Firefighters told CCTV that when they arrived they fought a blaze at the front of the pileup.

‘While some of us manned the hoses, a chief officer led the rescue efforts of trapped personnel,’ firefighter Wang Ruobing said.

A day after the collision the highway was still closed to traffic, according to the Shanxi Traffic Control Center. An investigation is underway.

Source: CNN