Three people killed by runaway bus in Spain

Three people were killed and three others injured when a school bus lost control and hit pedestrians in Cadiz in southern Spain on Monday, emergency services said.

The bus “ran over several people who were on the pavement,” Cadiz firefighters said on social media network X, formerly Twitter, adding that no one on the bus was injured.

Videos posted on social media showed firefighters dragging a palm tree off the top of the bus which came to a stop outside of a department store.

The front windows of the bus were completely shattered.

Three people were injured in and taken to hospital “one of whom has serious injuries”, the Andalusian government said in a statement.

“It appears to have been a brake failure, because the first images showed the bus arriving at high speed, unable to brake” and “the movement the bus made is consistent with this idea”, Cadiz official Jose Pacheco told reporters.

The driver of the bus tested negative for alcohol, the city council said in a statement.

The head of the regional government of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno, said he was “overwhelmed” by the news of the “unfortunate accident” in Cadiz.

ds/mg/pvh/giv