A series of accidents saw cars, buses, trucks and vans crash into each other 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside Konya city center on the highway to Ankara. The emergency services said 38 people, some with life-threatening injuries, had been taken to hospital. More than 40 vehicles were involved in highway pile-up in central Turkey on Monday as dense fog and ice created hazardous driving conditions.
One driver told Anadolu Agency how he was initially struck by a car that had been forced from the opposite side of the highway to face oncoming traffic. “Then I saw my car getting pounded from every direction,” he said.
Images from the crash site showed one car lying crushed under a truck and lines of vehicles crashed into each other. Emergency workers lifted a wounded passenger from a bus on a stretcher as the cries of the injured could be heard.
“I was in a bus,” one man said. “A traffic police car stopped us. Then as we went ahead, we saw the vehicles crashed and people stuck in these cars. The firefighters and paramedics were trying to help the stuck people.”