The accident took place on Saturday just before 6 am (0500 GMT) near the small town of Freginals, about 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Barcelona as the bus was returning from a traditional festival in the eastern city of Valencia, Jordi Jané, the Catalan interior minister, said.
According to Jané, the victims of the crash were all women aged 22 to 29 and “the majority are Erasmus students of various nationalities”.
The driver “hit the railing on the right and swerved to the left so violently that the bus veered onto the other side of the highway,” Jane said.
The Guardian wrote, British students were on the coach but it is not known if they were among the dead or injured.
“We can confirm that two Irish people received non-life threatening injuries in this morning’s bus crash in Tarragona, Spain,” a spokesman said. “We stand ready to provide consular assistance.”
The bus was carrying 57 people in all, including the driver. Of the 43 injured, 30 have been rushed to hospital, Jane said.
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, although they could not confirm the nationalities of the dead.
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