15 dead after bus with senior citizens collides with semitrailer in Canada

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correction

An earlier version of this story said that 15 people were killed in a Saskatchewan bus crash five years ago. Sixteen were killed. This version has been corrected.

A semitrailer collided with a bus carrying senior citizens on a rural highway in central Canada on Thursday morning, killing at least 15 people and injuring 10, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said, marking one of the deadliest road accidents in the country’s recent history.

The bus with about two dozen passengers was struck by the semitrailer as it crossed an intersection along the Trans-Canada Highway west of Winnipeg, according to authorities. Officers said they arrived at the scene at about 11:40 a.m. and have been working to notify the families of those injured and killed in the collision. The injured were taken to a hospital.

The majority of those involved in the accident were seniors from the nearby city of Dauphin and its surrounding area, according to Assistant Commissioner Rob Hill, who commands the Manitoba RCMP.

“Sadly, this is a day in Manitoba and across Canada that will be remembered as one of tragedy and incredible sadness,” Hill said at a news conference Thursday. “There are many people in Dauphin and the surrounding areas who are anxiously awaiting news about a loved one. To all those waiting, I can’t imagine how difficult it is not knowing if the person you love the most will be making it home tonight.”

Superintendent Rob Lasson of the Manitoba RCMP Major Crime Services called the scene a “mass casualty situation” that stoked memories of a catastrophic Canadian hockey team bus crash in Saskatchewan five years ago that killed 16 people.

The April 6, 2018, collision between a tractor-trailer and a bus carrying members of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey league team was one of the worst road accidents in Canada. The truck driver involved in the accident pleaded guilty to a slate of charges involving dangerous driving and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

“Answers will take some time, but I assure you RCMP will get the answers,” Lasson said of Thursday’s collision in Manitoba. “This incident does have echoes of the tragic collision that happened in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, and we are very much aware of that. We have already linked into the investigators in Saskatchewan who have firsthand experience and are some of the primary investigators in the investigation into the Humboldt crash, who are assisting us right now in any way they can.”

Both drivers in Thursday’s collision are being treated in the hospital, Lasson said, and the investigation is focusing on the question of who had the right of way.

Manitoba RCMP officials said all available resources were deployed to the scene, including forensic personnel who could reconstruct the accident. A support center was established in nearby Dauphin to answer questions for families of the passengers who were aboard the bus.

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