A pickup truck and a passenger van carrying a tour group collided in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park on Thursday evening, killing seven people, the Idaho State Police said. Both of the vehicles caught fire after the crash.
Six of those killed were in the van, a Mercedes, which was carrying 14 people, the State Police said. The driver of the pickup, a Dodge Ram, was also killed.
The crash happened just before 7:15 p.m. on U.S. Highway 20 near Henry’s Lake, a popular spot for hiking, biking and fishing in eastern Idaho, about 15 miles from Yellowstone. The cause was under investigation.
The State Police said that the authorities had summoned an air ambulance and other air and ground resources to respond to the crash because of the severity of the injuries.
The Fremont County coroner, Brenda Dye, identified the driver and sole occupant of the pickup as Isaiah Moreno, 25, of Texas. Ms. Dye said that she was waiting for the results of DNA testing to identify the six people in the van who were killed, because the bodies were unrecognizable.
All six were from outside the United States, Ms. Dye said in an interview on Friday. Two were from Italy, she said, and it wasn’t clear where the other four were from. They had been part of a group that was touring Yellowstone, she said.
Chinese state media, citing the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, said that Chinese citizens were among the dead. Five Chinese people were killed and eight more were injured in the collision, the Xinhua news agency reported. It was not immediately clear why there seemed to be a discrepancy with Ms. Dye’s number.
The consulate has asked the U.S. authorities to share the findings of the investigation into the accident, and to provide assistance for family members of the dead, Xinhua reported.
After the crash, two others on the highway jumped out of their vehicle to help, she said. They were “trying to pull out as many as they could,” from the van, which was emitting smoke, Ms. Dye said. She said they succeeded in helping eight people out of the van, including a child, before the van caught fire.
U.S. Highway 20 was closed for nearly seven hours while emergency responders and the Idaho Transportation Department worked to manage the scene and clear the roadway, the State Police said.
Christopher Buckley contributed reporting.