Dozens injured as over 130 vehicles crash in UK

PanARMENIAN.Net - Dozens of people have been injured as more than 130 vehicles were involved in a series of crashes in thick fog on the A249 Sheppey crossing in Kent ,UK, BBC News reported.

Eight of those hurt in the collisions, which took place at about 07:15 BST, have serious injuries. Early reports said 200 people had been hurt, but police later revised the figure.

Firefighters said they had freed five people from their vehicles on the southbound carriageway.

One witness said visibility had been very poor at the time of the crash but drivers were approaching the crossing with no lights.

Others at the scene described a mass of tangled cars, lorries, and a car transporter. Some reports said the crash went on for 10 minutes as cars continuously collided with each other.

Driver Martin Stammers said the scene was "horrendous" and described seeing cars under lorries and people lying on the floor. He said visibility was about 10 to 20 yards when he approached the bridge and saw five cars smashed into each other with one across the outside lane.

He managed to squeeze through a gap between that car and the central reservation, he said. "For 10 minutes afterwards, all we could hear was screeching, cars thudding into each other, lorries crashing," he added.

In November 2012, two people died and scores of people were hurt, when up to 140 vehicles collided in dense fog Southeast Texas in a pileup that left trucks twisted on top of each other and authorities rushing to pull survivors from the wreckage. The chain-reaction collision occurred in extremely foggy conditions on Thanksgiving Day on Interstate 10 southwest of Beaumont, a Gulf Coast city about 80 miles east of Houston.

In April 2013, three people were killed and dozens were injured in a massive pileup on a highway in Virginia. A total of 95 vehicles were involved in 17 "chain-reaction" crashes in the southbound lanes of Interstate 77

A 41-vehicle pileup on another Virginia highway brought traffic to a standstill for hours and sent at least a dozen people to the hospital in August 2013. Interstate 81 is a heavily used trucking route that, in Virginia, stretches from Bristol in the southwest part of the state to Winchester in the northwest part of the state. Much of the interstate in Virginia runs along the Appalachian Mountains chain.