Salt Lake City – A commercial tractor-trailer carrying 35,500 pounds of explosives overturned and exploded Wednesday, injuring four people and leaving a huge crater in a Utah highway.
The truck driver, a passenger in the cab, a motorist and a motorcyclist were hospitalized after the truck “pretty much vaporized,” Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Todd Royce said.
The explosion occurred in Spanish Fork Canyon outside Salt Lake City and left a crater in two-lane U.S. 6 estimated to be between 20 feet and 35 feet deep, Utah Department of Transportation spokesman Tom Hudachko said.
“The entire road is gone. Shoulder to shoulder, there’s no asphalt left,” he said.
Witnesses said the truck driver appeared to lose control of the vehicle after taking a curve at high speed, Highway Patrol Lt. Doug McCleve said.
The truck driver, a 30-year- old man who was not identified, was transported to University of Utah Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition.
Witnesses rushed to help the driver and his passenger, freeing the pair from their safety belts, McCleve said. The dazed driver was just coherent enough to say the word “explosive,” giving rescuers a sense of the danger, he said.
Two men were taken to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, where one was in fair condition and the other was treated and released. The motorcycle driver, J.D. Herbert of Denver, was taken by ambulance and was in satisfactory condition.
Herbert, a nephew of Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, said he was trying to warn motorists about the truck accident when the explosion blew him off his motorcycle.
He looked up to see “a mushroom cloud of fire, and shrapnel just starts falling down,” he told KUTV of Salt Lake City.
Officials wouldn’t say what kind of explosives were involved.
