2 dead, 9 injured after truck hits pedestrians in Quebec
TORONTO — Two men died Monday after a pickup truck rammed pedestrians along a road in the eastern Quebec town of Amqui. A senior Canadian official was quick to rule out a terrorist attack or a national security incident.
A provincial police spokeswoman said nine other people were injured, including two whose injuries are considered serious.
sergeant. Hélène St-Pierre said the 38-year-old driver, a local resident, surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of committing a fatal hit-and-run.
A senior government official familiar with the case said the incident was not related to terrorism or national security. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The authorities had not mentioned any reason.
St-Pierre said the two people killed were both men, one in his 60s and the other in his 60s. Of the injured, two suffered serious injuries and the other seven were being assessed, she said.
St-Pierre said investigators and crash reconstruction experts were working to establish the circumstances of the crash.
“Everything indicates that this was an isolated incident, and that there is no longer any danger in the area, and that there is only one suspect,” she said. declared.
The incident happened shortly after 3 p.m. along St-Benoit Boulevard in Amqui, a town about 350,220 miles northeast of Quebec.
The regional health authority has confirmed that a “code orange” has been declared at the Amqui hospital, which generally indicates a situation with a high number of injuries.
Alain Gilbert, a truck driver, said he was driving to Amqui when he saw several ambulances tending to about four or maybe five people spread over a distance of about 500 yards.
He saw a policeman performing CPR on a person lying on the ground. He said there didn’t seem to be any children in the group.
Last month in Laval, Que., police said a man driving a city bus deliberately rammed into a daycare center, killing two children.
In 2021, a man used a van to kill four members of an immigrant family in London, Ontario, in what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a hate crime directed against Muslims.