Three drivers lost their lives Monday evening in an accident involving several vehicles and heavy trucks which caught fire on Highway 30 in Bécancour, in Center-du-Québec. This road section was still inaccessible at the end of the evening.
Heavy trucks on fire and several injured people who died at the end of the evening: the scene which took place in Bécancour on Monday was of an extraordinary scale.
Five different vehicles were involved in this series of collisions that occurred around 2:15 p.m. Monday afternoon, said Sûreté du Québec (SQ) spokesperson Éloïse Cossette.
The accident occurred at kilometer 214.5 of Highway 30, between the intersections of Avenue des Jasmins and Rue des Glaïeuls. At this location, there is only one lane in each direction.
Among the vehicles involved, there is a car, a van, two 10-wheel trucks and a 53-foot truck, said Officer Cossette. The heavy trucks affected by the accident caught fire. These trucks transported rocks and grain. The Ministry of Environment was contacted due to the fuel spill.
At the end of the evening, the SQ confirmed that three of the five drivers involved had lost their lives. “Autopsies and formal identification procedures will be necessary in order to determine with certainty their identities,” the police force underlined in a press release.
The other two drivers suffered minor injuries.
An extended accident scene
The accident occurred in several phases. The vehicles involved were on a scene more than a hundred meters away, according to Officer Cossette, who was on site at the time of the interview. “There is a first vehicle on the east side which is alone. Then, the trucks are at least 100 meters away, in a cluster. They caught fire. And the van is still a little further away. So we will have to redo the sequence of the event to understand,” she described.
One thing is certain: a vehicle coming from the east ended up in the oncoming lane. “The roadway was dry, there was no sun which could have caused dazzling,” emphasizes the spokesperson. Is it a mechanical problem? Exceeded ? A dangerous maneuver? These are the hypotheses that will be looked at. »
A reconstructionist specializing in collision investigations went to the scene to analyze the scene. The latter will be necessary to better understand the sequence of impacts that led to this major accident scene. An investigation is therefore underway to determine the causes and circumstances leading to the tragedy.
Highway 30 was closed at this location in both directions for an indefinite period.