Canada highway crash near Winnipeg leaves at least 10 dead

At least 10 people have died after a "very serious" crash in the Canadian province of Manitoba, the CBC has reported.

The public broadcaster said the crash was between a semi-trailer truck and a handi-transit vehicle, which are used by people with limited mobility.

Police said the crash happened on the Trans-Canada Highway near Carberry, two hours west of Winnipeg.

Emergency crews and air ambulances have responded to the crash, reports said.

In several tweets, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Manitoba said it was responding to a "very serious... mass causality" collision, and that all of its resources, including its major crime unit, had been deployed to the scene.

The incident happened around 12:35 local time on Thursday (18:35 BST), according to a provincial advisory.

The RCMP had asked motorists to avoid the area as a several kilometres of the highway were closed near the crash site.

John Proven described the scene as "shocking". "I have never seen an accident that big," he said.

He said he also saw a semi-trailer truck nearby with a burned front end, and that about 20 police vehicles and eight ambulances were at the scene.

A spokesperson with the local air ambulance service told the news outlet that the agency had deployed one of its largest responses ever to the crash.

"This is sort of in line with the similar large incidents that we responded to in the past, such as the tragedy with Humboldt Broncos," Blake Robert said, referring to a 2018 crash between a bus carrying a youth hockey team and a semi-trailer truck that led to the death of 16 people.