Ten people including nine children have been killed after a horrific crash involving 18 vehicles in the US state of Alabama.
The tragedy on Saturday reportedly involved two tractor-trailer rigs and a bus from a home for abused, neglected and abandoned girls.
A nine-month-old girl and her 29-year-old dad were among the dead after the crash on a rain-drenched Alabama highway during Tropical Storm Claudette, authorities said on Sunday.
The deadly smash took place at about 2.30 p.m. on Interstate 65 in Butler County, Alabama, on Saturday.
About 18 vehicles were involved, including an Alabama Sheriffs Youth Ranches vehicle carrying eight other children aged 4 to 17, who were killed, Butler County Sheriff Danny Bond said.
The ranch is home to "Alabama's needy, neglected, or abused, school-aged children," according to its website.
Disaster struck as the ranch's 15-passenger van was returning from a beach vacation, driven by Tallapoosa Ranch director Candice Gulley, the only survivor aboard, who suffered serious injuries and was later hospitalized, said Michael Smith, chief executive of the nonprofit organization.
Killed were four girls who lived at the ranch, Candice Gulley's son and daughter and two boys who were their guests.
"It was horrendous. I've never seen anything like it in my whole life," Michael Smith said.
"This is the worst accident in our county history," Sheriff Bond added.
The cause of the crash on Interstate Highway 65 between Greenville and Fort Deposit, which was awash from the powerful storm, was under investigation.
The father killed with his baby daughter was driving a car in which the mother and others did not suffer major injuries, Sheriff Bond said.
About five other people were hurt in the crash, but none of the injuries were critical.
Alabama Law Enforcement Agency officials are investigating whether the accident could have been caused by vehicles hydroplaning on a wet roadway, officials said.
In the nonprofit Ranch program, founded in 1966, "children live in family situations with house parents on working ranches" designed to teach "Christian principles, hard work, responsibility, manners and loving kindness," according to the website.
On the ranch, children help with livestock care, farm work, lawn care and "are taught responsibility by completing daily chores and participating in daily devotionals and pledging allegiance to the American flag."
The weakening storm was classified on Sunday as Tropical Depression Claudette, according to the National Weather Service.
It headed away from Alabama after shattering rainfall records in several cities and being blamed for an additional two deaths after a tree fell on a rain-drenched home outside Tuscaloosa on Saturday, local media reported.
