SAINTE-GENEVIEVE-DE-BERTHIER - Four people are dead and many more injured after a van collided with a school bus Wednesday morning near Berthierville.
The crash happened shortly before 9 a.m. at the intersection of Routes 158 and 345 in Sainte-Genevieve-de-Berthier.
Paramedics and emergency personnel were at the scene for more than one hour removing students from the school bus and performing triage before transporting them to hospital.
At this point it's not clear why, but the van crossed the centreline and hit the school bus head-on.
Transport Quebec has ruled out road conditions as a cause of the crash.
Night shift workers were heading home
It's possible the driver of the van did not realize he had drifted into oncoming traffic, and police are theorizing that he fell asleep at the wheel.
"We know they were leaving work and may have been tired," Sgt. Richard said.
The van was bringing night shift workers from chicken farms near Trois-Rivieres, 60 km northeast of Berthierville, to their homes in Saint-Côme, another 70 km west of the crash site.
Police said little about the occupants of the van aside from the fact the four victims range in age from 22 to 32 years old.
Witnesses who heard the collision were at the scene within moments, and they said it was evident that three people in the van had been killed instantly.
The van's other occupants suffered critical injuries.
School children treated for minor injuries
Ambulances arrived to carry the 12 teenagers on the school bus and its driver the Centre Hospitalier Regional de Lanaudiere in nearby Joliette, where they were treated for minor injuries.
The hospital issued an amber alert anticipating a high volume of trauma patients. Of the five critically injured, three had to be taken to a Montreal trauma centre, and one didn't survive.
The bus was transporting the high school students to the nearby Pierre-de-Lestage high school, two kilometres from the crash site.
Berthierville is 80 kilometres northeast of Montreal along Highway 40.
