Six Dead After Rental Truck and Bus Collide in Upstate New York

Six people were killed on Saturday following a collision between a truck and a bus on a highway in upstate New York close to the Canadian border, state police officials and local media said.

Law enforcement officials responded to the crash at 6:02 a.m. on State Highway 37, in the town of Louisville. A Penske rental truck and an express bus carrying fifteen people were involved, according to a statement from the New York State Police. Two others who had been traveling on the bus were in serious condition, and another person was in critical condition, the statement said. The injured passengers were being treated at various hospitals.

The collision happened in icy conditions — as of Saturday evening, six inches of snow had fallen in Louisville. Photos showed that the vehicles might have crashed head-on on the highway, which had tall snow banks on either side.

The bus, which looked like a shuttle van, appeared to be affiliated with a solar energy company in central New York, according to a report from the local television station WWNY.

The cause of the accident is unclear, and the identities of the victims have not been released, as the State Police have said the incident remains under investigation. The highway, which runs east and west through Louisville, a town of roughly 3,000 residents, was closed for 12 hours on Saturday before reopening in the early evening. Louisville is located along the northern border of St. Lawrence County, which sit across from Ontario, Canada.