Sandstorms with gusts of wind with speeds of up to 50 kilometers per hour have caused a series of rear-end collisions in the American state of Illinois, which killed at least six people on Monday. According to the Illinois State Police, about 40 other people were taken to hospitals, some with life-threatening injuries.
"Fierce winds have blown soil and sand from the surrounding farms across the highway. The visibility was zero," a police spokesman summarized the series of accidents on Interstate 55 near Farmersville. In addition to cars and trucks, several semi-trailers were also involved in the collisions and caught fire. A representative of the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency reported rescue attempts that were complicated by the flames. More than 70 vehicles were involved in the series of accidents, which lasted more than three kilometers. After a dust warning from the National Weather Service, the highway remained closed until Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the meteorologists pointed to a combination of strong gusts and the plowing of the fields in the rural region. When the wind blows, the loosened, dry soil in flat areas of the United States is often carried for miles as a dense cloud. Most of the time, the sandstorms last only a few minutes.
One of the most devastating "dust storms" in recent American history was the so-called Black Sunday in 1935. At that time, a dark, almost 200-meter-high cloud of earth and sand with gusts of speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour moved from Nebraska via Kansas to Oklahoma and Texas. It is estimated that about 20 people died on "Black Sunday" - many of them from dust that had entered the lungs.