Deadly motorway crash claims six lives in Italy

A fiery motorway crash in northern Italy has taken the lives of six people, Italian news reports say.

Five of the dead, including two children were travelling together in a car, said RAI state TV said quoting firefighters in Brescia.

The sixth victim was a truck driver.

RAI said A21 highway traffic had already slowed to a crawl because of an earlier accident Tuesday when a truck loaded with sand struck the car in front of it, which in turn slammed into a tanker truck whose flammable liquid cargo caught fire.

Authorities didn’t immediately identify the liquid.

Firefighters were on the highway about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) north of the crash site dealing with the earlier accident when the tanker truck caught fire, reports the Associated Press.

Thick, dark smoke from the explosion could be seen for several miles.