Eleven people were killed and 50 others injured on Tuesday after a collision on a bridge caused a pileup of 23 cars and trucks on an expressway along South Korea's west coast, police said. The pileup occurred at around 7:50 a.m. on a highway bridge near the city of Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers southwest of Seoul, due to heavy fog and excessive speed, police officers said.
A 25-ton truck rear-ended a 1-ton truck on the West Sea Grand Bridge on the West Coast Expressway, triggering the pileup and sparking fires in 20 of them.
The injured were transferred to nearby hospitals for treatment.
"Drivers tend to overspeed on the 7.3 kilometer-long bridge," said an official of the Korea Highway Corp. The area was foggy and visibility was around 100 meters at the time of the accident, according to the official.
The section of the expressway where the incident occurred was blocked for rescue and investigation, causing severe traffic jams as millions of South Koreans began travelling to their hometowns ahead of Chuseok, the Korean autumn harvest holiday which falls from Thursday through Saturday.
Pyeongtaek, Oct. 3 (Yonhap News)
11 dead, 50 injured in 23-vehicle pileup on western S. Korean expressway |
