WASHINGTON: As many as 10 people were killed and 18 injured overnight in pileups on a highway in the US state of Florida, due to fog and smoke from a brush fire, media reports said Sunday.
Ten people were killed in the crashes, which the Florida Highway Patrol said involved at least 12 passenger cars and about seven semi trucks, the CNN reported.
Most of the collisions were on Interstate 75, said Alachua County Sheriff's Office Seargent Todd Kelly. Crashes also occurred on US Highway 441, the report added.
At least 18 other people were wounded in the series of crashes, which occurred around 3.40 a.m. on the interstate I-75 in south of Gainesville, northern Florida, Xinhua quoted reports as saying.
Some of the cars were still smoldering Sunday morning, as firefighters tried to douse the fires by spraying foam.
Some of the vehicles smashed into a tractor-trailer. All three lanes on both sides of the highway were closed Sunday morning.
The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) had been briefly closed the highway before the crashes because of a hazy fog and heavy smoke from a marsh fire in the Paynes Prairie area, south of Gainesville. It was reopened after the visibility improved.