The death toll from a series of fiery chain-reaction crashes involving dozens of vehicles on a fog-covered interstate in southeast Missouri has risen to six, officials said Friday.
The Mississippi County coroner confirmed the sixth fatality overnight, following a report Thursday of five deaths and many injuries in the pileups, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Kinder.
The names of those who died were expected to be released later Friday, Kinder said.
Officials were in the process of notifying families of the people who were killed, Mississippi County Coroner Terry Parker told NBC News on Thursday.
The collisions began about 8 a.m. Thursday on Interstate 57 as thick fog enveloped the Charleston area, about 150 miles south of St. Louis. The first pileup started in the southbound lanes, “then migrated to the northbound lanes,” Kinder said, snaring 47 vehicles — including several semitrailers — in the wreckage.
“It was a horrific scene,” Kinder said. “The wreckage area itself was a half-a-mile long.”
Photos and video captured by a driver who was stuck near what he described as a pileup showed what appeared to be a semitrailer in flames, mangled wreckage and a massive column of black smoke.
"The black mess on that tow truck is what's left of a semi," he wrote on Facebook.
A 25-mile stretch of the interstate was closed in both directions in Mississippi County, from Interstate 55 to the Illinois state line.
The interstate reopened early Friday, the Missouri Department of Transportation tweeted.