'Multiple deaths' in Ottawa as bus and train collide

At least five people have been killed after a passenger train collided with a bus in Ottawa at a rail crossing, officials have said.

The crash between a double-decker bus and a Via Rail train occurred at the height of morning rush hour in Canada's capital city about 08:48 (12:48 GMT).

The front of the bus appeared to have been ripped off in the collision. Emergency workers are at the scene.

There were no major injuries reported among the train passengers.

Eyewitness Pascal Lolgis said the bus driver appeared to have driven into a lowered barrier.

"Boom! It went into the train like that. He just didn't stop,'' she was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

Another witness, said the rail barrier was down.

"And I was just looking around, just watching things happen. And noticed that in the bus lane, the double-decker bus... I saw him, and he just kept going," Mark Cogan told AP.

"I just thought maybe there's a side way around or something... He went through the guard rail and just hammered the train, and then it was just mayhem."


Source: BBC