Death toll rises to 6 after pileup during snow squall on Pennsylvania highway; 80 vehicles involved

POTTSVILLE, Pennsylvania — A total of six people were killed in the massive pileup on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania during a snow squall on Monday.

The names of the victims will be released once family notifications have been made, state police said in a news release Wednesday.

The wreck in Schuylkill County involved a total of 80 vehicles, including 39 commercial vehicles and 41 passenger vehicles.

Twenty-four people were taken to four different hospitals in the area, police said. Other people with less serious injuries were taken by bus to a reuinification center.

That stretch of Interstate 81 northbound in Foster Township reopened at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. The southbound lanes had previously reopened.

The crash was captured in videos posted on social media that showed drivers and passengers lining the snowy road and jumping out of the way as the cascade of crashes unfolded.

In one video, an out of control tractor-trailer smashed into a large dump truck turning it nearly 180 degrees, another large truck caught fire and spewed black smoke into the air, and an SUV struck a passenger car sending it spinning narrowly past a person standing on the shoulder in snow and fog.

Some vehicles were mostly burned and others melted onto the highway.