Massive highway pileup in Poland kills 4, including children, and injures 15

WARSAW, Poland — Polish prosecutors plan to press charges against a truck driver they believe was responsible for an accident on a highway in northern Poland that killed four people, including two young boys, and injured 15 other people, a spokesman said Sunday.

The accident occurred Friday after 11 p.m. when the truck collided with a car on the S7 highway near the northern city of Gdansk. The collision triggered a chain reaction that involved 21 vehicles — 18 passenger cars and three trucks — carrying a total of 56 people.

Mariusz Duszyński, spokesman for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Gdansk, said at a news conference Sunday that the prosecutor’s office plans to change the 37-year-old driver with causing a traffic disaster that endangered the life and health of many people.

He said the truck was going 89 kph (55 mph) in an area with a speed limit of 80 kph (50 mph) and the truck driver did not brake before hitting the car in front of him. The driver was sober and was not using his phone while driving.

The private broadcaster TVN24 showed footage of the suspect being taken to the prosecutor’s office, where he will be charged.

Duszyński said two of the four fatalities in the accident were boys aged 7 and 10 who were traveling in one of the cars involved in the pileup. The work of identifying the two other deceased victims is still underway.