Police in Canada said on Saturday the death toll in a horrific crash in Saskatchewan had risen to 15 people, after a bus carrying a junior hockey team collided with a semi-trailer on a rural highway. More than a dozen were injured.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was in “shock and mourning”.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said 29 people were on the Humboldt Broncos’ team bus, including the driver, when the crash occurred some 200km (124 miles) north-east of Saskatoon. The team had been heading to a Saskatchewan junior hockey league game against the Nipawin Hawks, officials said.



Police initially said 14 people had died and another 15 were sent to a hospital “with a variety of injuries. Three of these people have injuries that are critical in nature.”

Images from the scene suggested the force of the crash had torn the bus in two, leaving debris scattered across the highway. The semi-trailer sat nearby, overturned.

No names were released as police worked to notify families. Officials would not say if the dead included players – who hail from across Western Canada and range in age from 16 to 21 – or their coaches.

Saying it was too early to determine the cause of the collision, police said the driver of the semi-trailer was not injured. Along with players and coaches, those on the bus included emergency personnel and an announcer with a local radio station.

Citing relatives, the Canadian Press said on Saturday that those killed included head coach Darcy Haugan, described on social media as an incredible mentor to young players, and captain Logan Schatz, who had played with the team for just over four years.

A photo tweeted earlier in the day showed three players lying side-by-side in hospital beds, hands clasped together. The caption said the three were “bonding and healing”.

R J patter (@rjpatter) Derek Grayson and Nick bonding and healing in hospital pic.twitter.com/DzesIoT27B

Officials with the team struggled to hold back tears as they explained that the priority on Saturday was on taking care of the players and families affected.

“We are heartbroken and completely devastated by the tragedy that occurred yesterday,” said Kevin Garinger, team president. “We will never forget 6 April 2018. We will never forget the members of our Broncos family who were taken from us …We will persevere and we will honour the souls who were lost.”

He described the Broncos as a close-knit team who were well-known in the small farming community of 6,000 where they played. The players had been heading to game five of a playoff series, with the next game scheduled to take place on Sunday in Humboldt. The community said it would instead use that time to hold a vigil in the local hockey arena.

“This is truly a dark moment for our city and our community and our province,” said Rob Muench, mayor of Humboldt, wearing a green and yellow Broncos jersey.

This is one of the darkest days in the history of Saskatchewan, especially because hockey is so ingrained Kevin Henry, hockey coach

“Throughout Canada we see teams going out into the Canadian winters on buses all the time,” he said. “It’s always a thought in parents’ and fans’ minds about what could happen. And unfortunately this happened here in Humboldt.”

Reports of the crash sent parents from across western Canada rushing to the scene, fearing the worst. In Humboldt, a hockey arena was turned into a mobile crisis unit.



Michelle Straschnitzki, the mother of an 18-year-old player on the team, said her son Ryan had been taken to a hospital in Saskatoon. “We talked to him but he said he couldn’t feel his lower extremities so I don’t know what’s going on,” she told the Canadian Press. “I am freaking out. I am so sad for all of the team-mates and I am losing my mind.”

Darren Opp, president of the Nipawin team, said parents, coaching staff and players had gathered in a local church. “It’s a horrible accident, my God,” he said. “It’s very, very bad. There’s uncles and moms and dads waiting to hear whether their sons and nephews are OK.”

Kevin Henry, a coach who runs a hockey school in Prince Albert and knows players on the Humboldt team, said the crash had left people reeling. “It is sort of every parent’s worst nightmare,” he said. “This is I would think one of the darkest days in the history of Saskatchewan, especially because hockey is so ingrained in how we grow up here.”

Condolences poured in from across Canada and around the world, from former hockey players, sports organisations and political leaders.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emergency crews block the highway near the crash site. Photograph: Canadian Press/Rex/Shutterstock

“An entire country is in shock and mourning,” Trudeau said in a statement. “Our national hockey family is a close one, with roots in almost every town – small and big – across Canada. Humboldt is no exception and today the country and the entire hockey community stands with you.”

Within hours of being launched, a fundraising campaign to help the players and families affected by the crash had raised more than C$1.1m ($860,000), far exceeding its initial target of C$10,000.

Donald Trump said on Twitter he had spoken to Trudeau, “to pay my highest respect and condolences to the families of the terrible Humboldt Team tragedy. May God be with them all!”

Friday’s crash – which ranks among the country’s worst disasters to strike the Canadian sporting community – sparked painful memories of a 1986 accident that killed four hockey players with Saskatchewan’s Swift Current Broncos, when the team bus slid off an icy highway in late December.