BELTON - Interstate 35 came to a complete standstill Sunday afternoon after a seven-car pile-up on Interstate 35. Two other smaller collisions were reported immediately following the initial accident. Northbound traffic was diverted onto feeder roads while the southbound lanes crawled along at speeds of about 10 mph.

Ambulances, police, and state troopers fought traffic to get to the scene of the accident in the northbound lanes near mile marker 289.

Officials from Belton Police Department said that there were no injuries from the first accident.

The second accident was just north of the original, at the Shanklin Road exit. The third was south of the 293B exit in southbound lanes.

Salado police were called in to shut down the highway south of the wreck. Traffic was backed up in the southbound lanes for at least five miles and at one point came to a complete halt.

Some cars stuck in the southbound lanes of I-35 decided the easiest way out of the backup was to cross the median to the feeder road.

Others heading north pulled off into the Valero Gas Station.

David Stream from Dallas was returning after a long weekend in San Antonio. “We knew something had happened but by the time we got up near it we only saw five cars scattered over about half a mile.” Stream said he and his family were stopped for about 10 minutes before crawling at 10 mph for another 30 minutes.

“We stopped here to get some drinks for the kids and cool down a bit,” he said. “At one stage the road looked like a graveyard for wrecked cars. There just seemed to be one damaged car after another.

“They just seemed to be scattered up the highway. I am amazed no one was hurt.”

Stream said accidents like that remind him how quickly everything can change.

He looked at the traffic still crawling along the highway northbound and commented it was going to be a long drive home with two young sons.

The traffic did start to move once people entered the Temple city limits.