At least 13 university exchange students, all of them women, have died in a motorway coach crash near Tarragona in north-east Spain.

Jordi Jané, the Catalan interior minister, said the victims of the crash early on Sunday morning were aged between 22 and 29 and that the majority were Erasmus students of various nationalities, adding authorities were trying to draw up a list of the victims.

Jané confirmed that 13 of 63 people involved in the accident were dead, and that 30 had been injured. Three were said to be in critical condition.



British students were on the coach, but it is not known if they are among the dead or injured. Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said two Irish students were injured in the crash.

Emergency services confirmed that the students on the coach represented 19 nationalities: France, the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, the UK, Italy, Peru, Bulgaria, Poland, Ireland, Palestine, Japan and Ukraine. They could not confirm the nationalities of the dead.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Crashed coach in Spain on Sunday. Photograph: Jaume Sellart/EPA

Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s president, said identification was difficult because the coach was one in a group of five returning to Barcelona after celebrating the Fallas festivities in Valencia, and there were no passenger lists of who was on which coach. He has declared two days of mourning.

At around 6am on Sunday, the driver lost control near Amposta, Tarragona. The vehicle crossed the central reservation and collided with an oncoming car.

The coach driver was among the survivors and tested negative for drugs and alcohol. He has driven for the company that chartered the bus for 17 years and had never had an accident.

The son of the owner of the company that chartered the bus told Spain’s national radio station RNE that his father was driving another bus in front of the one that crashed.

“All of a sudden, he stopped seeing it in his rear-view mirror,” said the son, named only as Raul. “He stopped at the next service area, called the driver but he didn’t pick up.”

He said his father asked passengers in his bus to call those in the other vehicle and that is when he got news of the accident. “The driver is in a state of shock, but he’s OK physically,” he added.

The occupants of the other coaches in the party were unaware of the accident until they arrived in Barcelona.

Dídac Ramírez, the rector of the University of Barcelona, travelled to the scene to help identify the victims, some of whom were not carrying identity documents. He said it was likely that most of the students were at his university, one of four involved in organising the trip.

The stretch of motorway where the incident occurred is notorious. Núria Ventura, the mayor of nearby Ulldecona, said: “This is an accident black spot. There have been numerous accidents here,” while Jané added: “Everything points to human error being the cause of the accident, though it’s too early to say. There’s no reason to think there was a problem with the road itself.”

The Erasmus programme provides foreign exchange courses for students from countries within the 28-nation European Union. Around 3 million students have taken part in the study abroad scheme since its inception, and Spain is one of the most popular destinations.



The University of Barcelona offered its condolences to the victims’ families in a statement released via Twitter: “The #UniBarcelona sends its condolences to the families and relatives of the victims of today’s bus accident. We remain at your disposal for any further needs.”

Flags at the university were reportedly being flown at half-mast as a sign of respect towards the dead.

Erasmus Student Network Barcelona, an organisation representing Erasmus students throughout the city, confirmed the trip had been organised by them and that volunteers from their organisation were also on the coach.

The trip, which cost €20, had set off for Valencia on Saturday morning and participants were told to expect “the best show of fireworks, smoke and noise you’ve ever seen” throughout the day and evening. A slogan on the website reads: “Study hard, party harder.”

It was suggested in the publicity for the trip that the journey home could be spent sleeping, as the meet-up time for the return journey was 3:30am. The estimated arrival time in Barcelona had been 8am.

A statement said: “ESN Barcelona would like to convey our condolences and join the pain of the families, friends and relatives of the victims. We feel the deep loss. In the same way, we would like to express our sincere willingness to be as helpful as possible with the family, friends or institutions.”



The accident is one of the deadliest in Spain in recent years. In November 2014, a bus carrying pilgrims fell into a ravine in the south-east, leaving 14 dead and another 41 injured.



Puigdemont was due to travel to Paris on Sunday but cancelled the trip to go to the site of the accident. He will lead five-minutes’ silence on Monday in memory of the students at the University of Barcelona, accompanied by the city’s mayor, Ada Colau.

Joining in mourning for the tragedy, players for Barcelona and Villarreal – which is only around 100 kilometres from the crash site – observed a moment of silence before kick-off, as will those from the Real Madrid and Sevilla later on Sunday.

The emergency hotline for those seeking information is +34 900400012 from abroad or 900400012 from within Spain.

