14 killed as train and bus collide in Ukraine
A freight train crashed into a passenger bus at a road crossing in southern Ukraine today, killing 14 people, emergency officials said.
The accident happened near the village of Novoselovka at a crossing that did not have gates.
Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Oleh Oleksandrov said two of the dead were children. The ministry later said in a statement that eight people were hospitalised with injuries, and four were in serious condition.
Preliminary information showed the train was to blame in having violated safety rules, which sent the train’s engine careering off the track at the crossing point and slamming into the bus, the ministry statement said.
There was no immediate information about the condition of the train driver, Oleksandrov said.
Emergency crews were working at the crash scene in the Odessa region, about 300 miles south of the capital, Kiev.
A similar accident in May 2004 involving a freight train and a passenger bus in the same region killed 15 people.
