A 135-car pileup along Interstate 57 in a corner of Missouri has left six people dead and a temporary shut down of the highway on Thursday. According to officials, the crash was over half a mile in length.

The circumstances of the crash remain unclear, but a local official said he suspected an initial crash created the devastating chain reaction that followed. Video from the scene showed several tractor trailers demolished in a scene resembling a warzone as over a hundred cars piled onto each other. A thick plume of smoke could be seen emerging from the scene in videos of the crash.

“Visibility was reportedly as little as 50 feet because of heavy fog in the area this morning,” the Missouri Department of Public Safety tweeted.

In a statement, Scott City Fire Department described the scene as a "mass casualty" vehicle collision that involved cars coming from Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky. The agency said that it remained on the scene for six hours where it worked together with emergency personnel from the three states involved.

A total of six people were killed in the devastating wreck. Further casualties have not yet been reported, but local media reports that a mobile morgue was opened in Charleston, Missouri after the crash.

After the pileup was reported, the I-57 and I-55 were closed for traffic as the vehicles were cleared off the route from noon local time. The mass of wrecked vehicles was not fully cleared from the area until 5:00 AM on Friday morning.

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