Four people were killed and 29 injured in a massive Tuesday morning crash on Interstate 25 in southern Colorado involving 36 vehicles, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
Heavy winds blew dirt across I-25 south of Pueblo around 10 a.m., causing “brown out” conditions along the interstate, state patrol officials said.
“Visibility was next to nothing,” Maj. Brian Lyons of the Colorado State Patrol said.
I-25 was closed in both directions between exit 91 for Stem Beach and Colorado 45 in Pueblo, near milemarker 94, . The interstate’s southbound lanes were cleared and reopened around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the northbound lanes reopened overnight.
Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to the pile-up crash on northbound I-25 involving commercial trucks and passenger cars about two miles south of Pueblo at 10:02 a.m. Tuesday, according to the state patrol.
When troopers arrived, they also found a secondary crash in the southbound lanes.
Together, the two crashes involved 36 vehicles, including seven semitrailers and 29 passenger vehicles.
Four people were confirmed dead, state patrol officials said. They included two men from Walsenburg and two women — one from Rye and the other from Pueblo.
The fatalities and injuries all occurred in the large crash in the northbound lanes, state patrol officials said. The crash in the southbound lanes only damaged vehicles.
Paramedics took 29 people injured in the crash to two area hospitals, state patrol officials said. Seven of them suffered “serious bodily injury” and one remained in critical condition Tuesday night, officials said. The remaining 21 were treated for minor to moderate injuries.
Another 10 uninjured people remained at the scene after the crash.
The victims killed in the crash will be identified by the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office after their families have been notified, according to the state patrol.
A pickup truck hauling a trailer containing goats was among the vehicles involved in the northbound crash. Four of those goats were killed, state patrol officials said, and 28 survived and were safely removed from the crash site.
Information about the cause of the crash was not available.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
