At least 14 European university exchange students have died in a motorway coach crash near Tarragona in north-east Spain.

Jordi Jané, the Catalan interior minister, said the victims were aged 22 to 29 and “the majority are Erasmus students of various nationalities. We are trying to draw up a list of the victims”.

He said he was unable to confirm reports that all the students were at the University of Barcelona.

The coach was the last in a group of five returning to Barcelona after celebrating the Fallas festivities in Valencia. The occupants of the other three coaches were unaware of the accident until they arrived in Barcelona.

Jané confirmed that 14 of the 57 passengers were dead; the remainder did not appear to be seriously injured. The coach driver is among the survivors.

At about 6am on Sunday the driver lost control near Amposta, Tarragona, and the vehicle crossed the central reservation and collided with an oncoming car. “Everything points to human error being the cause of the accident, though it’s too early to say,” Jané said. “There’s no reason to think there was a problem with the road itself.”

(The Guardian)