Moscow: One person was killed and 16 others were injured after a bus carrying tourists collided with a freight train at a railroad crossing in the Lodeynopolsky district of the Leningrad region in Russia, according to the regional administration.
"According to the Leningrad Region Health Committee, as a result of a collision between a bus and a freight train at a crossing in the Lodeynopolsky district, one person died and 16 passengers were injured," TASS quoted the regional administration's press service report as saying.
Injured people were being taken by the ambulance crews to the Lodeynopolskaya and Volkhov hospitals. Air ambulance helicopters are working to take the injured to the Leningrad Regional Clinical Hospital.
Earlier, the press service of the October Railway said that two people died and 10 others were injured in the accident. According to police, the bus was carrying people travelling to the Alexander Svirsky Monastery.
A criminal case has been initiated for violating traffic rules and operating vehicles. In a video shared by the police press service, head of the Lodeynoye Pole State Traffic Inspectorate, Artur Koshlets, said, "As a result of the collision, at least 12 people were injured, the severity of the accident is being determined, one citizen born in 1957 died. There were also two minor children on the bus. The children were not injured."
The press service of the October Railway (OR) said that one person was killed in the accident. According to the OR, the accident was caused due to scheduled bus driving in front of an approaching train. The accident occurred at 6:11 Moscow time at the Inema station crossing between the Lodeynoye Pole and Olonets stations.
The report said: "As a result of the accident, no rolling stock was derailed. The locomotive crew of the train did not seek medical assistance. The train driver applied emergency braking, but the distance was insufficient and the collision could not be avoided." The North-West Transport Prosecutor's Office and the Western Interregional Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for Transport have started a probe into the accident.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
