14 dead after Turkish school bus veers into canal

Fourteen people including six children have died after a bus carrying school pupils, teachers and parents crashed into a car and fell into an irrigation canal in Turkey.

Kerem Al, governor for Osmaniye province, said 26 people were injured in the accident, which occurred in the south of the province as the bus was returning from a school trip to a national park and museum.

Security camera video of the accident showed the bus driving into oncoming traffic at an intersection, being hit by a car and rolling into the canal.

Bypassers and residents jumped into the canal to try to rescue people trapped inside the bus, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Most of the bodies were recovered by divers.

At least one of the injured passengers was in serious condition, the health minister, Recep Akdag, said.

The children were from a school in the town of Iskenderun in Hatay province, which lies just south of Osmaniye bordering Syria.

Hurriyet said the dead included a teacher, the bus driver and the driver’s assistant.