Maine car crash: Several injured in pile-up involving as many as 60 vehicles

Blinding sun may have caused massive accident on Interstate 95

Helicopters have been dispatched to a crash involving dozens of cars on Interstate 95 in Maine. (Maine Department of Transportation)

As many as 60 cars and trucks were involved in a "chain-reaction" interstate crash in Maine, stranding hundreds of drivers and backing up traffic for hours in icy conditions.

The crash on Interstate 95 in Carmel closed the northbound lanes for several hours after an accident caused a pileup around 8am. The Maine Department of Transportation reopened the northbound lanes to traffic nearly four hours later.

Emergency helicopters have been dispatched to the area, and Maine State Police say there are reports of injuries, at least one of them serious.

That person was transported by helicopter to Eastern Maine Medical Centre in Bangor.

The hospital expects to treat more than a dozen patients injured in the wreck.

A team of state troopers, ambulances and a fleet of tow-trucks were also sent to the scene.

According to the state's Department of Transportation, crews had treated the road for ice, and roads were reportedly "bare and wet" at the time of the crash.

State police say it appears the sun may have blinded drivers, which caused a crash and the ensuing pile-up at 7.45am. But ice was still visible on the road near the crash site hours later.

The accident follows a deadly crash on a snowy turnpike in Pennsylvania that killed five people and injured at least 60 others on Sunday after an overturned bus was struck by two tractor-trailers, followed by another, starting a pileup involving passenger vehicles and delivery trucks.