14 students killed, 30 injured in Spain bus crash

A bus carrying university students back from a fireworks festival crashes on a main highway in northeastern Spain, killing 14 passengers and injuring 30 others, a Catalonian official says.

The bus carrying more than 50 passengers appears to have hit the right-hand side barriers of the AP7 highway before cartwheeling across the road and slamming into the central fence, landing on its side, says Jordi Jane, spokesman for Spain’s northeastern Catalonia province.

Jane says emergency rescue workers are still working to clear the wreckage that had closed the major highway linking Spain with France along the Mediterranean coast in both directions.

The bus driver is being held at a police station in the city of Tortosa, Jane says. Road conditions were good at the time of the crash and an investigation is looking into the cause of the accident, he says.

Jane says most passengers on the bus are studying at two universities in Barcelona, but does not comment immediately on their nationalities.

— AP