BOISE, Idaho — Five Chinese and one Italian tourist were killed when a pickup truck hit their van earlier this month near Yellowstone National Park. Their names were given by Idaho police on Friday.
Ivana Wen, 28, of Milan, and Jian Shi, 56, of Shanghai, China, died in the crash on May 1. They were with Xiaoming Jiang, 66, of Guilin, China.
Li Nie, 64, and Aifeng Wan, 53, both from Arcadia, California, were two of the tourists who died. Yu Zhang, the van’s 30-year-old driver from Eastvale, California, was also killed.
The van held 14 people. Police said that 12 of the 13 people were Chinese and 1 was Italian. People who survived were hurt and taken to local hospitals.
The truck driver also died. He was first named by authorities as Isaih Moreno from Humble, Texas.
The Dodge Ram that Moreno was driving crossed the center line and hit the Mercedes van that Zhang was driving. The truck crossed the center line, and police said they were still looking into why.
The accident happened on a highway south of West Yellowstone, Montana. In the spring, before a north-south road is plowed and the park opens for the summer, this highway is used to get between Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.
It is one of the biggest national parks in the U.S., and every year millions of people come to see it. Along with the famous Old Faithful geyser, it is home to more than 50 other kinds of mammals. While most of it is in Wyoming, it also covers parts of Montana and Idaho.
A park tourist use study that used the most recent and complete data found that 17% of Yellowstone’s visitors came from other countries in 2016. 34% of the tourists from other countries were from China, and 11% were from Italy.