LIMON – Two people are dead after at least 13 different cars and trucks were involved in a pileup, forcing authorities to close an 80-mile stretch of Interstate 70 between Limon and Burlington on Monday afternoon.

The Colorado State Patrol says the accident happened around 1 p.m. at mile marker 374, about 15 miles east of Limon and near the town of Genoa, and involved eight passenger vehicles and five semi trucks.

State Patrol says there are two confirmed fatalities and at least five other injuries. Four of the injured were taken to Lincoln Community Hospital in Hugo and another victim was taken to the burn center at Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora.

Trooper David Hall with the Colorado State Patrol says one of the people who died was a man from Denver in a pickup truck who went into a ditch, but did not release his name. Hall says the other victim was in a heavily burned car that was sandwiched between two semi trucks. Hall says they haven’t identified the burned victim.

The Colorado Department of Transportation describes the wind in the area as “extreme” and says there is blowing dust creating what they called “brownout” conditions.

The State Patrol called it a dust storm.

“It’s an absolute ‘brownout’ with a dirt storm right now, unlike I’ve personally ever seen,” said Hall. “When I first arrived on scene, I could barely see my hand in front of my face.”

One of the troopers on scene told 9NEWS he couldn’t see 5 to 10 yards in front of his car.

Four troopers were taken to Lincoln Community Hospital and treated for dust in their eyes, according to Hall.

“The visibility’s so bad you can’t see across the width of the interstate here,” said Greg Vernie with The Limon Leader on Monday afternoon.

Vernie said he could see several trucks and cars involved in the accident from his office.

“You can see that most of the cars that were involved in the accident were hit from behind. They probably just drove into the cloud of dirt and then panicked, stopped and then people ran into them,” he said.

“The wind is blowing through so bad it’s like driving through fog. Pretty much can’t see at all,” said Lori Nunn, a driver on I-70 stopped by the pileup. “I can definitely see how it happened, with not being able to see where you’re going.”

“This very particular stretch of road right here, where this accident happened, there’s a barren field that’s got a layer of topsoil on it that’s just blowing across the highway. I imagine when these vehicles got into it they stopped because of visibility and then it just racked up from there,” Hall said.

Vernie says the extreme winds started around 10 a.m.

“Every fence and nook and cranny out here that will hold tumbleweeds are full of either tumbleweeds or trash that’s blowing,” he said.

9NEWS Meteorologist Marty Coniglio says winds were gusting on the Eastern Plains on Monday with gusts of 56 mph clocked in Limon, 53 mph in Akron and 52 mph in Sterling. On Sunday, winds were gusting up to 60 mph on the Eastern Plains.

I-70 was closed in both directions between Limon and Burlington because of the crashes. Eastbound I-70 reopened just after 5 p.m. and westbound reopened around 9:30 p.m. CDOT had said it didn’t expect to reopen the highway until after midnight.

“You might expect blizzard conditions out here on I-70 in the middle of January, maybe not so much a complete ‘brownout’ dust storm,” Hall said.

Colorado 9News