On Monday, six people were confirmed dead in a series of highway collisions in rural Illinois caused by a dust storm, authorities said.
Illinois State Police Maj. Ryan Starrick said at an early evening news conference that over 30 people, ages 2 to 80, were hospitalized with injuries from minor to life-threatening.
State police said the crashes, which involved as many as 90 vehicles on Interstate 55 north of Farmersville just before 11 am, included separate pileups on the northbound and southbound sides.
"The cause of the crash is due to excessive winds blowing dirt from farm fields across the highway, leading to zero visibility," Starrick pointed out.
The first pileup was reported on the northbound side of the interstate, which runs through farm country. Starrick mentioned that topsoil and dust from the farms were blown across the roadway.
The National Weather Service on Monday forecast "widespread blowing dust," with gusts of 34 mph possible, for the Farmersville area. Winds were out of the northwest, according to the federal forecasters.
State police highlighted that visibility continued to be low. The interstate was closed in both directions north of Farmersville, a small village along a defunct stretch of Route 66, as investigators tried to reconstruct some of the timeline and conduct a secondary search for victims.
Starrick explained that the interstate could be closed until Tuesday afternoon.
"At this time we feel we have everyone transported safely off the interstate," he said.
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