Five people, including three young children, are dead aftera two-vehicle accidentin Illinois on Monday.
All three children, the school bus driver and the truck driver were killed.
Families of the victims have been notified, per ABC News.
The accident happened near Rushville, about 230 miles southwest of Chicago and 57 miles northwest of the state capital of Springfield.
CBS Evening News/ Youtube
Schuyler-Industry Schoolswas among the first to confirm the incident, while expressing their condolences for the lives lost and everyone impacted.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce our school community has lost both staff and students in the traffic incident involving one of our school buses this morning,” they began in a Facebook post earlier on Monday.
police on highway – stock image.Getty
Getty
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and our community,” they added, declining to share the names of the deceased until the families had been contacted.
The district added that school would not be in session on Tuesday or Wednesday.
“Counselors and support staff will still be available for students and teachers during this very difficult time,” the Facebook message concluded.
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Elected officials mourned the loss as well.
Stock image of an ambulance.Getty
“Schuyler County is a small county, a small community,” county sheriff Bill Redshaw said, per NPR Illinois. “It’s a close knit family and when you have lost a life like this, it’s devastating. It’s quite a tragedy.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it plans to carry out a thorough investigation.
“The NTSB, in coordination with Illinois State Police, is sending a team to conduct a safety investigation into Monday’s multi-vehicle collision involving a school bus and a truck tractor in combination with a semitrailer on U.S. Highway 24 in Rushville, Schuyler County, Illinois,” the organizationwrote on X(formerly known as Twitter) later that evening.
As authorities worked on determining a possible cause of the collision, the road had been closed for several hours earlier in the day.
source: people.com
