Thick smoke leads to 11 deaths on Florida highway

Eleven people died as a result of several car accidents along Interstate 75 just south of Gainesville, Florida this weekend. The accidents took place early Sunday morning, around 3:45 a.m., when a wildfire caused thick smoke to engulf the highway.

That smoke was also coupled with intense morning fog. The highway had previously been closed due to the inability to see properly, but was reopened right before the accidents started. Survivors of the crashes are claiming that their visibility was at zero percent when people began to collide into one another.

According to reports, two large semi-trucks completely stopped their vehicles on both sides of the highway when additional motor vehicles struck them from behind. Sequentially, the backside of those vehicles were hit, and a total of 19 cars were involved in the accidents.

Numerous cars caught fire and were crushed underneath larger vehicles. Emergency personnel were still unable to see clearly when they arrived on the scene, and had to rely on the sounds of people’s voices to locate victims. In total, 11 people lost their lives in the crashes and another 18 people were injured. Police are still investigating the causes of these accidents, as well as the cause of the wildfire.