More than 100 vehicles have been involved in an accident in foggy conditions on a bridge in Kent.
The crash occurred on the new Sheppey crossing bridge on the A249 at 7.15am.
There are reports of six serious injuries and 200 minor injuries, police said.
The accident happened in thick fog with some witnesses saying that visibility was down to 20 yards in places.
The scene on the bridge was a mass of tangled cars, lorries and even a car transporter, with reports saying that the crash went on for 10 minutes as cars continuously collided with each other.
Witness Martin Stammers, 45, from Minster, told Kent Online: “It’s horrific. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. All you could hear was cars crashing. We got out of our car and it was eerily quiet, with visibility down to just 20 yards.”
He added: “I was very, very, lucky. I was thelast car out of it, if you like. As I come to the top of the hill, there wereabout five cars already smashed up, one was across my carriageway. I had to hitmy brakes hard as well, I just had enough space to get through.
“From then on, all you could hear was the screeching of car tyres and the thudding, which was endless. It must have been going on for five to 10 minutes. You could hear hear the screeching, you could hear the lorries thudding into cars, you could hear glass breaking, there was nothing we could do.
“Even after the police turned up, you still heard further down the bridge – a quarter of a mile, half a mile away – cars still going into the back of each other. It was horrendous.”
He said drivers on the opposite carriageway thanked him for waving for them to slow down, saying they would have been involved in more serious collisions had he not done so.
Mr Stammers added: “As you went further up, there were cars in the air, there were cars under lorries, there were people laying on the floor, it was just horrendous.
“If you were travelling at 30mph you would have still hit the car in front of you because the visibility was down to 10 yards.
“I just can’t believe how close… We were five seconds from, I would say, near death. Very, very, very, lucky, I just hope everyone else there is OK.”
He went on: “I can’t explain how you’re standing there in the quiet and all you can hear is this thud and the glass breaking. It’s just silence, that’s all you can hear – a screech and a thud, a screech and a thud. Horrific, absolutely horrific.”
South East Coast Ambulance Service said it was dealing with a major incident with 30 ambulances and cars at the scene, but a spokesman said he was not aware of any deaths.
A Kent Police spokeswoman said: “At the moment there are no reports of fatalities but obviously we have a lot of vehicles there and there could be people trapped.”