Seven people, including a 6-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, were killed after a charter bus ran off the road on Interstate 20 in western Mississippi in the early hours of Saturday, authorities said.
The crash involving a 2018 Volvo bus happened around 12:40 a.m. just east of Vicksburg, roughly 45 miles outside Jackson.
A total of 37 passengers were rushed to area hospitals, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said. Their injuries were not immediately clear.
The bus was traveling westbound on I-20, between Bovina and Vicksburg, when it went off the road and turned on its side, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace told local TV station WAPT.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, while another victim died at a hospital in Vicksburg, WJTV reported.
Authorities have not released the victims’ identities, but according to Warren County Coroner Doug Huskey, the crash killed four males and three females.
Huskey told CBS News that the 6-year-old boy and his teen sister were both from Guatemala and were identified by their mother.
“Anytime you have people injured or killed, it’s tragic but when you have a situation like this where you have multiple fatalities and multiple injuries, it makes it even worse,” Pace told WAPT.
The crash is being investigated by the state’s highway patrol and the Mississippi Department of Public Commercial Transportation Enforcement Division.