Three drivers died Monday evening in a multi-vehicle crash involving heavy trucks that caught fire on Highway 30 in Bécancour, Center-du-Québec. This section of road was still not passable in the evening.
Updated yesterday at 9:32 p.m.
Burning heavy trucks and several injured people who died in the evening: the scene that occurred on Monday in Bécancour was of an extraordinary scale.
Five different vehicles were involved in this series of collisions, which occurred on Monday afternoon around 2:15 p.m., said Éloïse Cossette, spokeswoman for the Sûreté du Québec (SQ).
The accident occurred at kilometer 214.5 of Highway 30, between the intersections of Avenue des Jasmins and Rue des Glaïeuls. At this point there is only one lane in each direction.
The vehicles involved included a passenger car, a pickup truck, two 10-wheel trucks and a 53-foot truck, Officer Cossette said. The heavy trucks involved in the accident caught fire. These trucks transported stones and grain. Due to the fuel leak, the Ministry of the Environment was contacted.
At the end of the evening, the SQ confirmed that three of the five drivers involved had lost their lives. “Necropsies and formal identification procedures are necessary to determine their identity with certainty,” police emphasized in a press release.
The other two drivers suffered minor injuries.
An extended accident scene
The accident occurred in several phases. According to Officer Cossette, who was on scene at the time of the interview, the vehicles involved were more than a hundred meters away. “There is a first vehicle on the east side that stands alone. The trucks then stand in a cluster at least 100 meters away. They caught fire. And the van is a little further away. Therefore, we have to repeat the sequence of the event to understand it,” she described.
One thing is certain: a vehicle coming from the east ended up in the oncoming lane. “The road was dry, there was no sun that could have caused glare,” emphasizes the spokesman. Is it a mechanical problem? Surpassed? A dangerous maneuver? These are the hypotheses that will be examined. »
A reconstructionist specializing in collision investigations was on site to analyze the scene of the accident. The latter will be necessary to better understand the impact sequence that led to this serious accident. Therefore, an investigation is currently underway to determine the causes and circumstances that led to the tragedy.
Highway 30 was closed in both directions at this location indefinitely.