The multi-vehicle collision occurred last Sunday. According to the police, a chain-reaction of crashes occurred at a time of heavy fog on the highway’s Queens Creek overpass in York County in the morning hours. The bridge was also icy. There were not fatalities but 35 people were hospitalised, some of them with life-threatening injuries.
Drivers and emergency services were forced to climb over the vehicles piled up in the westbound lanes. The scene was cleared in the afternoon around 3.45 pm local time. An investigation has been launched.
Fog has been a key factor in many of the largest motorway crashes in history.
In 1991 for example, 150 vehicles crashed in Ochten in the Netherlands. Multiple vehicles collided due to heavy fog. One person was killed and 64 inured.
Another large pileup occurred in Lansing in the US in 2005. No less than 200 vehicles were involved. Fog again played a factor. Two people lost their lives.
The second largest pileup took place in Braunschweig in Germany back in 2009. Heavy rain caused 259 vehicles to crash on the A2 motorway in Lower Saxony. Around 10 people suffered serious injuries.
The largest pileup in history involved around 300 vehicles in Sao Paula, Brazil, in 2011. The collisions were due to heavy fog. Thirty people were injured and one person lost their life. Several vehicles involved in the pileup caught fire.
