SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Intense fog and smoke led to a deadly 51-vehicle pile-up along the highway linking Chile’s capital to Valparaiso on Wednesday recalling instances when dense smoke from bush fires envelop Jamaica’s Highway 2000.

Police say the Chile accident, which killed five people and injured more than 20, started when one small vehicle stopped suddenly due to lack of visibility in the dense morning fog, which was made worse, witnesses said, by smoke from the burning of nearby fields.

Locally, on Highway 2000 four years ago, dense smoke engulfed the roadway causing a 10-vehicle pile-up that left several people injured.

“It was a thick kind of smoke. I tried to escape it but I couldn’t. Thank God many other people were not hurt,” said Michael Young, a minibus driver who was caught in the pile-up at the time.

Operators of the Highway 2000 toll road, Trans Jamaica Highway, insisted then that the accident occurred because motorists did not obey signals along the highway telling them not to proceed.

“There was a car driving along the highway with a billboard with a message telling people not to proceed, but they still went on. There were also flagmen along the road,” a Trans Jamaica representative said then.

Efforts yesterday to get a comment from Trans Jamaica regarding the adequacy of such a warning method were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile in Chile the victims included the brother, brother-in-law and nephew of one of the responding firefighters, as well as an 11-year-old boy whose body was pulled from the wreckage of a truck cabin, said Transport Minister Pedro Pablo Errazuriz, who was at the scene.

Chile Health Minister Jaime Manalich said two helicopters as well as numerous ambulances responded. In all, 23 trucks, 11 buses and 17 cars were involved in the crash.