Two truck drivers are dead after a tanker truck exploded during a wreck involving three vehicles late Tuesday night.
The accident occurred on Tuesday night, June 20th in Pickering, Ontario, Canada on Highway 401.
According to CTV News Toronto, a tanker truck hauling “highly flammable” liquid was heading east on Highway 401 when the driver lost control for unknown reasons. The truck veered into the westbound lanes and “exploded into a fireball,” which spread the flames to an oncoming tractor trailer and a passenger vehicle.
“There were two other westbound vehicles that got tangled up within that mess with that fire and oil and flammable liquid basically spraying all across the highway and into these vehicles, which is what we believe right now may have triggered these two vehicles to catch fire,” said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.
pickering fire on the hwy 401 at brock road, everything was happening so fast pic.twitter.com/KZIgxEfJef
— adam (@adammcmasteryay) June 21, 2023
Both truckers were pronounced dead at the scene. The occupants of the passenger car were able to escape their vehicle before “being overcome by fire and smoke.”
The incident caused multiple small explosions in the area as the flammable liquid spread.
“The explosions that were being reported in that area while this fire was ongoing actually extended not only to where the vehicle, the transport truck, was burning but as the fuel was pouring into the catch basins, there were explosions in the storm sewers that actually blew the storm sewers and the catch basins to pieces,” Schmidt said.
A portion of Highway 401 is expected to remain closed throughout Wednesday. No further information has been released.
