Ten people died, many of them high school students, when a tractor-trailer slammed into a tour bus with college hopefuls heading to a campus tour in northern California today, California police said.
A California Highway Patrol (CHP) spokeswoman confirmed early this morning that the 10th death was a chaperone on the tour bus.
Five students, three chaperones and the drivers of the FedEx truck and tour bus were killed, CHP and the university said.
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More than 30 others were hurt after the driver of a FedEx truck lost control, jumped a divider on Interstate 5, side-swiped a car and smashed head-on into the tour bus at around 5.30 pm PDT yesterday, CHP spokeswoman Tracy Hoover said.
“They are traumatized, absolutely,” Ms Hoover said of those injured. “Most of them have scratches, cuts, burns, contusions and lacerations - a magnitude of injuries.”
Apart from the driver, the bus was carrying between 44 and 48 students and several chaperones to Humboldt State University (HSU) for a campus tour, CHP spokeswoman Lacey Heitman said.
The crash took place near the city of Orland, 150 km north of Sacramento.
The students, traveling from Los Angeles-area high schools, were part of a programme the university says “brings low-income and first-generation prospective college students from the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas to HSU’s campus.”
Reuters