“I’m not sure why, it’s not an especially dangerous road – most of it is sealed, there aren’t many trees,” she said. “When I saw the news I just thought, ‘Oh, another one?’”
Kim Clarke, who lives on Chapel Road, said police had told residents not to go near the crash site because no one should have to see the scene.
Police say nine people were in the vehicle when the driver lost control on Monday afternoon.Credit: Nine News
She said she knew something had happened after hearing a noise around 5pm, before a police car and then an ambulance came screaming down the road.
“We just feel for the families, we thought they [the occupants] were fruit pickers to start with. There are a few orchards around here and it’s peach season.”
Clarke said Chapel Road was one lane in each direction with a speed limit of 100. She said police had told her husband that the road likely would not reopen until Tuesday afternoon.
The crash was the second in three years in the Moira Shire local government area where a road crash resulted in multiple deaths.
In April 2023, five people were killed when their Nissan Navara was hit by another vehicle in Strathmerton, west of Cobram. In January, a driver was jailed for 5½ years after pleading guilty to five charges of dangerous driving causing death.
The minivan crash in Muckatah was the second fatal incident on Victorian roads on Monday. At 7am, a 32-year-old man died after his car crashed into a tree in the Wimmera town of Kaniva, in Victoria’s far north-west.
Victoria’s road toll for 2025 now stands at 279, the same as at this time last year. More than half of these have been deaths on rural roads.
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