Two men and a woman were killed and five others were injured in a tragedy on the main road between Dundee and Aberdeen on Tuesday.
The crash involving a Citylink Gold bus, a red Renault Megane Scenic and a silver Ford B Max took place at about 4.30pm on the A90 at Glenbervie.
The road was completely closed until about 1pm on Wednesday as police investigated the cause of the collision.
⚠️*OPENED* at 13:15 ⌚️
The #A90 at Glenbervie, South of Stonehaven is now OPEN ✅in both directions after a serious RTC last night.
Thanks to all emergency services and @NETrunkRoads for all the work they do!Please retweet #ABZTravel @NorthEPolice pic.twitter.com/E9YPK2KLDi
— Traffic Scotland (@trafficscotland) March 13, 2019
The three victims of the crash were travelling in the Renault, which had five people inside it.
The three crash victims are all said to be foreign nationals.
The male driver of the Renault and a female passenger were taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The man has minor injuries and the woman has serious wounds which are not life-threatening.
No bus passengers were injured, however the driver suffered minor injuries.
The two occupants of the Ford, a man and a woman, were also taken to hospital suffering from non life-threatening injuries.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday afternoon, Road Policing Chief Inspector Stewart Mackie said the force are still in the process of contacting the victims’ next of kin.
He added: “We do have a number of witnesses who have come forward but I would appeal to anyone who was on the A90 at that time yesterday afternoon who has seen anything or indeed has any dashcam footage to contact us.”
The A90 crash sparked a huge emergency response which involved three fire and rescue appliances, a heavy rescue unit, five ambulances, a helimed, and Scottish Ambulance Service special operations and trauma teams.
Four people had to be cut free from vehicles by firefighters.
Chief Inspector Mackie added: “Collision Investigators have been working throughout the night and we are hoping to open the A90 to traffic early this afternoon.
“I realise this will have created significant travel disruption to travellers and so I would like to thank them for their patience whilst we dealt with and continue to investigate this tragic incident.
“This would have been a difficult and harrowing scene for those who witnessed the collision and tried to offer assistance.
“I would like to express my gratitude for their efforts and to also thank the emergency services who dealt with this extremely challenging incident.
“My thoughts remain with everyone affected by this.
“If anyone witnessed the incident and hasn’t already spoken to the police I would ask that they contact officers on 101 using reference number 2576 of March 12.”
Last night a spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: “We received a call at 4.33pm today to attend a road traffic accident on the A90, south of Glenbervie.
“We dispatched five ambulances, our special operations team, a helimed resource, our trauma team, a 3RU unit, two managers and a Patient Transport resource to the scene.
“We transported four patients to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.”