A huge traffic pileup occurred in west Canada yesterday (January 31) when freezing conditions from the polar vortex became too cold for road salt to reliably work.

The accident took place on highway 11 at Memorial Avenue in Orillia about 90 minutes north of Toronto, Ontario, and footage of the aftermath shows at least seven wrecked vehicles of different sizes, while a lane was opened to allow further traffic.

The filmer told Newsflare: "There were multiple crashes and pileups in the snow, ice and blowing snow plus the road salt doesn't work at these temps so the hard packed snow turned to hard packed ice so slippery you couldn't walk on it."

Multiple car crash on highway in Orillia Canada in the polar vortex extreme cold and snow severe weather conditions

Hi, Yes it all happened on Jan 31st around 1pm, on highway 11 at Memorial ave in Orllia which is about 1 hour and 30 minutes north of Toronto. There were multiple crashes and pileups in the snow, ice and blowing snow plus the road salt doesn't work at these temps so the hard packed snow turned to hard packed ice so slippery you couldn't walk on it.