Five people, including two children, have died in a car crash on the M6 motorway.

Cumbria Police said officers were called to the crash on the northbound carriageway near Tebay Services involving a Skoda and Toyota at 4.04pm on Tuesday.

The man driving the Toyota, as well as a woman and two children, all from Glasgow, were pronounced dead at the scene.

The Cambridgeshire man driving the Skoda was also declared dead at the crash site.

A third child in the Toyota was airlifted to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle with serious injuries.

Four fire engines from nearby Penrith, Kendal and Shap were mobilised, and fire crews remained at the scene for several hours.

Local resident, Chris Isles, said he was around “50 yards” away from the accident on Tuesday and saw black smoke and flames.

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The 58-year-old from Kirkoswald near Penrith in Cumbria told the PA news agency: “From where I was, 50 yards further back, it just seemed like a vehicle fire.

“I was parked up and I could see the smoke. It hadn’t really happened that long. I literally must have been two minutes behind it happening.

“I got out of my (campervan) and just looked down the line and between the lines of vehicles in front of me, I could see there was quite a big fire that started.

“This was at 10 past four. Less than 20 minutes later the air ambulance was there.”

Mr Isles, who captured a photo of smoke billowing into the sky, was driving home and was expected to take only seven minutes to drive from junction 38 to 39, but said he was stuck in “standstill” traffic for around three and a half hours.

“I was up near the front. They seemed to have turned everybody back from the back of the queue forward,” said Mr Isles, who is a publican.

“So where we were, we were probably some of the last people to get off. It was about half past seven when we eventually got moved.”

He said he feels “really shocked” at the incident and is “thinking of the family of everybody”.

“It’s terrible. It never crossed my mind that there would have been five people killed. It’s awful,” he said.

Photographs on social media showed a plume of black smoke rising into the sky above the motorway at the site of the crash.

The images also showed the tailbacks created by the incident, with traffic backed up across all three lanes of the motorway.

Cumbria Police said in a statement: “The families of those involved are being supported by specially trained officers.”

The road reopened early on Wednesday.