Seventeen people have been hurt after a coach veered off a motorway slip road and overturned in heavy fog.
The male driver and 16 passengers suffered injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises when the Oxford Bus Company vehicle crashed off the northbound slip road at junction 7 of the M40, near Milton Common in Oxfordshire, at 2.45am on Friday.
South Central ambulance service said thick fog had made access to the scene more difficult and Thames Valley police said the road would be closed for several hours.
A fog warning had been issued to drivers across swaths of England. The crash happened just 20 miles (32km) from a fatal pile-up on the A40 in Oxfordshire in similarly treacherous conditions on Wednesday morning.
An ambulance spokesman said: “South Central ambulance service declared this a major incident due to the number of patients involved and attended the scene with our colleagues from Thames Valley police and Oxfordshire fire and rescue service.
“There was thick fog in the area at the time of the accident which also presented challenges to the emergency services getting to the scene.”
Six ambulances helped take the casualties to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford.
Police are investigating and Sgt Mark Scully, of the Hampshire and Thames Valley joint operations unit, said the fog was dense at the time of the crash.
He told Sky News: “We are lucky at the moment we are not dealing with anything considered life-threatening.”
No arrests have been made, a Thames Valley police spokesman said.
An investigation into the 20-car crash on the A40 on Wednesday, in which one woman died and many other people were injured, is continuing and there have been no arrests, he said.
A weather warning has been issued urging drivers to be wary of fog and subzero temperatures across large areas of England.
A yellow severe weather warning for #fog has been issued: https://t.co/TmvTfmDfrK. Stay #weatheraware @metofficeuk pic.twitter.com/o6Szk6SXPK
— Met Office (@metoffice) December 30, 2016
The Met Office said freezing fog had settled in parts of the country and poor visibility could persist into Friday afternoon.
The blanket of fog covering the south-east in the morning also caused cancellations and delays at major airports. A spokesman for Heathrow said: “The airport is still in heavy fog, which is expected to continue into the afternoon.
“As of 9.30am, approximately 30 flights have been cancelled. Our advice to passengers is to check the status of their flight with their airline before coming to the airport.”
There were delays of more than an hour on some flights at Gatwick but no cancellations, according to the live departure board on its website.
The Met Office meteorologist Emma Sillitoe said: “The main thing we have had is large and dense freezing fog patches. People driving around in the morning should take care on the roads.”
Visibility could be just 100 metres and ice could develop on the roads, Sillitoe added.
The “yellow” fog warning, issued until 10am on Friday, affects much of southern England but patches of freezing fog were seen everywhere from the Midlands and the Humber to the south-west.
The fog, which was expected to slowly lift and thin, could linger into the early afternoon, particularly in the south-east and East Anglia, the Met Office said.
On Thursday, temperatures plunged to freezing in areas including Suffolk, Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Devon and northern Scotland.
The AA advised motorists to take extreme caution, adding that extra time should be allowed for journeys, tyres properly inflated and windscreens de-iced.
A spokesman, Ian Crowder, said: “We have got the worst possible conditions, of fog and icy roads, and that can be lethal. I think the message is … to prepare for the worst and make sure all windows are clear.”
