13 European university students die in Spanish coach crash

Coach carrying students of 19 nationalities collides with car in motorway accident near Tarragona

At least 13 European university exchange students, all of them women, have died in a motorway coach crash near Tarragona in north-east Spain.

Jordi Jané, the Catalan interior minister, said the victims of the crash early on Sunday morning were aged 22 to 29 and “the majority are Erasmus students of various nationalities”.

He added: “We are trying to draw up a list of the victims.” Several of the injured are in a serious condition and the death toll may yet rise.

British students were on the coach but it is not known if they were among the dead or injured.

Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said two Irish students were injured in the crash.

“We can confirm that two Irish people received non-life threatening injuries in this morning’s bus crash in Tarragona, Spain,” a spokesman said. “We stand ready to provide consular assistance.”

Emergency services confirmed that the students on the coach represented 19 nationalities: France, the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, the UK, Italy, Peru, Bulgaria, Poland, Ireland, Palestine, Japan and Ukraine, although they could not confirm the nationalities of the dead.

Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s newlyelected president, said identification was difficult because the coach was one in a group of five returning to Barcelona after celebrating the Fallas festivities in Valencia and there were no passenger lists of who was on which coach. He has declared two days of mourning.

The occupants of the other four coaches were unaware of the accident until they arrived in Barcelona.

Dídac Ramírez, the rector of the University of Barcelona, travelled to the scene to help identify the victims, some of whom were not carrying identity documents. He said it was likely that most of the students were at his university, one of four involved in organising the trip.

Jané confirmed that 13 of 63 people involved in the accident were dead with 30 injured. The coach driver was among the survivors and tested negative for drugs and alcohol. He has driven for the company for 17 years and has never had an accident.

At around 6am on Sunday the driver lost control near Amposta, Tarragona, and the vehicle crossed the central reservation and collided with an oncoming car.

Alejandro López, the driver of the fourth coach, pulled over when he realised he couldn’t see the last bus in his mirror. He phoned the driver and when he didn’t answer asked students to call their friends. It was then they heard from survivors about the crash.

The stretch of motorway where the accident occurred is notorious for accidents. Núria Ventura, the mayor of nearby Ulldecona, said: “This is an accident black spot. There have been numerous accidents here.”

“Everything points to human error being the cause of the accident, though it’s too early to say,” Jané said. “There’s no reason to think there was a problem with the road itself.”

Spanish television showed the car, the front of which was smashed in, and the bus lying on its side.

The Erasmus programme provides foreign exchange courses for students from counties within the 28-nation European Union.

The accident is one of the deadliest in Spain in the past years. In November 2014, a bus carrying pilgrims fell into a ravine in the southeast, leaving 14 dead and another 41 injured.

Puigdemont was due to travel to Paris on Sunday but cancelled the trip to go to the site of the accident. He will lead five-minutes’ silence on Monday in memory of the students at the University of Barcelona, accompanied by the city’s mayor Ada Colau.