Paris: Two people, including a minor, were killed and 16 others injured after an intercity bus carrying children and teenagers to school crashed near the town of Lent in eastern France on Friday morning, authorities said. Three of the injured are in serious condition.
The bus crashed in the Ain region, a rural area north-east of Lyon. According to the regional prefecture, emergency services and law enforcement personnel were deployed to the site following the accident.
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said in a post on X that he was travelling to the site following what he described as a "serious bus accident" near the small town of Lent.
French news broadcaster BFM TV reported that the passengers included children travelling to middle and high schools in the area. A photograph from the scene showed the bus had veered off the road and landed in a ditch.
Education Minister Édouard Geffray expressed concern over the incident, saying that students and children had been among those affected.
"It is always a difficult moment when our students, our children, are victims of an accident like this. My thoughts, and those of the government and the entire education community, are with the families," he told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to a high school in the Paris region. (with inputs from PTI)