VIENNA, Sept 30: At least eight people died and and scores were injured, many seriously, in a rush-hour pile-up involving up to 100 cars in thick fog on Austria’s main east-west motorway on Monday, police said.

“It’s like a battlefield out there — rescuers are trying to get through the wreckage, vehicles are on fire and people are still missing,” a spokesman for the local Seewalchen motorway police in Upper Austria told Reuters.

“At least eight people are dead and around 70 injured,” he added.

The pile-up occurred at around 0500 GMT between the villages of Schoerfling and Seewalchen, some 65 kms east of Salzburg, on the A1 motorway which links the capital Vienna in the east to Germany in the west.

The motorway in the area has been closed in both directions. The thick fog had reduced visibility to under 10 metres.—Reuters