A woman has been killed and four others sustained minor injuries after a tour bus carrying grade school pupils collided with a sedan passenger car in New Orleans at 10am on Thursday. The accident occurred on the I-10 West, close to Michoud Boulevard in eastern New Orleans.
According to initial reports from the New Orleans Police Department, who were the first responders on the scene, the tour bus was carrying children on a school tour from Crestview, Florida when the accident occurred. A lone woman driver was travelling along the I-10 eastbound in a maroon Honda Accord near the offramp to Michoud Boulevard when she lost control of her car on the rain slicked highway. The driver veered into the westbound lanes of traffic, and was hit into break da bank by the oncoming bus from behind. There were 42 children on board the bus at the time of the incident.
The mangled wreckage of the Honda ended up on the island between the two lanes of the highway, while the bus driver swerved the bus and pulled off the highway into the adjacent woods. The driver of the Honda, whose identity has been withheld from the media pending notification of her next of kin, was declared dead on the scene by emergency first responders. Four of the children on the bus sustained minor injuries and were transported to hospital by ambulance, where they remain in a stable condition, said local authorities.
The I-90 both Eastbound and Westbound was closed for more than two hours following the accident, while the wreckage was cleared from the scene, with several miles of traffic backed up on both sides. The road was officially reopened at 12.30 once the remains of the vehicles had been removed from the interstate.
In other bus accident news this week, five people were killed and a further 42 people injured in a bus accident in China’s Qinghai Province on Thursday morning. According to Chinese authorities, the bus accident occurred at approximately 6.40 am, when a tour bus travelling from the city of Chengdu, capital of China’s southwest Sichuan Province, overturned after the bus driver lost control on a sharp hairpin bend. The bus was en route to Qinghai Yushi’s Tibet Autonomous Prefecture at the time of the accident. Officials are currently conducting an investigation into the cause of the accident, said local media reports citing the provincial public security department.