A massive pileup on a Baltimore interstate left two people dead and nearly two dozen others injured Saturday morning.
Cell phone video taken along I-95 captured a tanker bursting into flames after sliding off a northbound overpass and onto a street below. Several approaching tractor-trailers on the overpass appear unable to stop as they drive into the flames and plumes of smoke on the road ahead.
Driver Marvellous Amasiatu, who filmed the chaos on his phone from another lane of traffic, expressed shock and horror as he watched the scene unfold before him.
“This is a disaster. A disaster, Lord. I’m about to cry,” he says as he records the flames and trucks that he describes as “going right into the fire.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language and images that may be disturbing to some readers.
About four minutes into his video, yet another crash takes place in front of him as a tractor-trailer plows into the back of a semi that had stopped before the flames.
“It’s a miracle more people weren’t hurt or killed,” Baltimore’s Emergency Management Director Bob Maloney told WJZ-TV.
Lt. Kevin Ayd of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police said as many as 67 vehicles were involved in the 5 a.m. collisions that injured 23 people, ABC 2 News reported.
Speaking to The Baltimore Sun, Ayd said that icy conditions “absolutely” played a role in the tanker losing control, but that officials will also investigate other potential factors, including speed.
Less than an hour earlier, a third person died in an unrelated crash along the same interstate. In that incident, the victim is believed to have either jumped or fallen over the highway’s elevated wall to his death while running from a crash site, The Sun reported.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and his wife expressed their “deepest condolences and prayers to the families and loved ones of the individuals who lost their lives early this morning as a result of fatal accidents.”
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh also expressed her condolences to the victims.
“Today’s icy road conditions remind us all that it is imperative to exercise extreme caution due to severe weather,” she said in a statement. “I want to thank the emergency crews for their expedient response.”
Maryland State Police said they responded to 330 crashes across the state over the 24-hour period that included Saturday morning’s crashes.
All I-95 lanes have since reopened.
