A trooper speaks to one of the drivers involved in an eight-vehicle pileup on Interstate 80 eastbound near the Venango-Butler County line Monday evening. The chain-reaction wreck about 5:40 p.m. closed both eastbound lanes for two-and-a-half hours. Several people were injured, none seriously.

Several people were injured Monday evening in a vehicle smash-up that involved five tractor-trailers — one carrying a car hauler — and three other vehicles on Interstate 80 near the Venango-Butler County line, authorities said.

The chain-reaction crash in Scrubgrass Township, which closed both eastbound lanes for about two-and-a-half hours, occurred about 20 minutes after a heavy downpour moved through the area.

Trevor Hile, chief of the Emlenton Volunteer Fire Department, said the pileup was triggered around 5:40 p.m. when a passenger vehicle apparently spun out just before the I-80 bridge, only several hundred feet outside Butler County. The vehicle ended on the right edge of the highway.

This is an excerpt from a larger article that appears in Wednesday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read