Tuesday, a sport utility vehicle which was carrying farm workers and a septic truck collided, causing both vehicles to plunge into an irrigation canal. At least five people were killed.

According to The Associated Press, California Highway Patrol Officer Mayolo Banuelos said that authorities managed to pull out the Ford Explorer out of the Delta-Mendota Canal Tuesday night and got out the bodies of three men and one woman. The victims were going back home to Lodi after they had been working in an orchard south of Westley in Stanislaus County. Authorities were trying to find out their identities.

Mayolo Banuelos also said that divers pulled another man from the septic truck.

The vehicles plunged into the water about 15 miles southwest of Modesto. The truck crashed into the SUV around 12:21 p.m. Tuesday. The friends and relatives of the victims were devastated.

“They never had a chance to get home. We're just sitting here hoping and waiting,” said Belen Martinez, 47. She said she got a call and was told that her friend, brother-in-law and nephew had been involved in a car crash.

Pete Lucero, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said that the canal, which funnels water from a pumping plant to the San Joaquin Valley, was about 17 feet deep and 100 feet wide in the area where the two vehicles crashed.

The septic truck had just cleaned out some portable toilets and was not carrying toxic material but biodegradable material. Apparently the contents of the truck didn’t spill in the water.