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Police say 20 people were hurt when a shuttle bus chartered by a contractor for a data centre company went off a highway near Mackenzie, B.C., resulting in two hospitals declaring Code Orange events as patients were transported in a fleet of air and ground ambulances.
A statement from the RCMP said it was a “chaotic scene,” and injuries ranged from minor to serious.
Police said they were called to the remote site on Wednesday around 9:10 a.m. about a single-vehicle crash on Highway 39.
The bus was found down an embankment about four kilometres south of Mackenzie, which is about 900 kilometres north of Vancouver.
The complete shutdown of the highway was required and the Northern Health Authority said the Mackenzie and District Hospital and the University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George both declared a Code Orange, which is typically used to designate a mass casualty event.
“This was a chaotic scene, and police will need time to sort out many of the details,” Sgt. Michael McLaughlin with BC Highway Patrol said in the statement.
“We need to speak with anyone who has dash camera video of the bus, or any witnesses who saw what was happening prior to the crash.”
The Northern Health authority said the Code Orange was lifted at the Mackenzie hospital at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, while it was taken down an hour later at the university hospital.
A statement from BC Emergency Health Services said one patient was transported from the scene by air ambulance in serious condition.
Six others were transported by ground ambulance to a hospital then transferred by air ambulance to another facility. Two were in serious condition and four were in serious but stable condition.
Another 13 patients in stable condition were transported by bus to hospital accompanied by advanced-care paramedics.
A spokesperson for the multinational data centre company IREN, which has a 4.5-hectare data centre site in Mackenzie, confirmed that the bus was chartered by one of its contractors.
“We are in close contact with the contractor, emergency responders and the RCMP as they work to establish what happened,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
IREN, which operates three data centres in B.C., said its immediate concern was for those on the bus and their families and the company is supporting the response.
The company also has data centres in the United States, with projects planned in Spain and Australia.
Kiel Giddens, the legislature member for Prince George-Mackenzie, said he was thinking about the small community of about 3,300 people, calling the crash a “scary situation.”
Giddens said the data centre is an “important employer in the community.”
“When it’s a small town, a place like Mackenzie, these are friends, neighbours, family members impacted. That’s why these situations can be scary and that’s why my heart goes out to anyone impacted,” he said.
Police said the cause of the crash is still uncertain and “nothing has been ruled out.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2026.
— With files from Wolfgang Depner in Victoria
Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
