Penza, 2 March 2016. PenzaNews. The head and the staff of the Bessonovka inter-area investigation office of the Penza region Investigative Committee are currently investigating the big traffic accident on the M5 “Ural” federal highway near Penza that leaves 9 dead and 3 injured, Lyudmila Fomina, senior assistant of the head of the regional Investigative Committee for media relations, told PenzaNews.

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“They are still working in the incident area. The figures of the dead and the injured may further change. We are investigating all details of the tragedy,” she said.

As PenzaNews reported earlier, the emergency services received the report about the tragic accident in the Bessonovka area of the Penza region at 13.10 of Wednesday, March 2, after a passenger minibus collided with a freight truck on the M5 “Ural” federal highway.

According to preliminary data, 9 people died at the scene and 3 were injured in the crash, all of them from the minibus. The current status of the injured is still under investigation.

The EMERCOM opened an incident hotline, +7 (8412) 68-11-12, that provides information on the situation with the passengers of the minibus that followed from Ulyanovsk to Penza, according to clarified data.

At the moment, the emergency rescue services are extracting the bodies out of the minibus.

One of the injured persons is a child, says Sergei Kozlov, head of the Penza region EMERCOM headquarters.