Five people, including two children, died in a fiery six-vehicle collision in South Los Angeles, police said. A van going through an intersection barreled into a second van that had sped through a red light and «made it go airborne,» setting off a chain reaction that left three vehicles ablaze, melted a traffic signal and scattered debris across the intersection, said police spokeswoman Karen Smith. «By the time the van landed,» Smith said, «it was fully engulfed in flames.» A 12-year-old boy was ejected from a vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene, Smith was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. Two other victims of the accident, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles, were found burned beyond recognition inside a vehicle. Paramedics took at least 14 people to the hospital, where a 7-year-old and an adult later died of injuries and six were in critical condition, Smith said. More than 100 firefighters responded to the scene and emergency workers set up a triage area. The identities of the passengers were not immediately released. The site still was closed to traffic more than nine hours after the crash as investigators continued to work the scene.
