Highway collision both disruptive and deadly

Four people are dead and three more injured after an accident Friday evening on Autoroute 10 involving a tanker truck and three other vehicles. The specifics of the collision itself are still under investigation.

According to Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau of the Surete du Quebec, the ac- cident took place at around 6 p.m. on Friday.

“One car found itself underneath the truck,” Bilodeau said. The resulting fire produced a plume of dark smoke that was visible several kilometres away and resulted in a complete closure of the highway in both directions between exits 68 and 74. The SQ officer said that the fire was quickly brought under con- trol, but not before the four people inside the burning car were killed. The victims have yet to be identified.

The three survivors of the multi-vehicle collision are shaken but not in lifethreatening situations.

Cleanup and accident reconstruction work kept the highway closed until 5 a.m. Saturday morning, resulting in significant traffic congestion as drivers were diverted onto cross-country detours. Traffic became particularly bad in the eastbound direction, aggravated by pre-existing lane reductions from construction near exit 68. Within an hour of the initial collision, cars were backed up and practically immobile as much as ten kilometres away from the scene.