Train crashes into bus in Argentina, killing 17

By Helen Popper

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - A train plowed into a double-decker bus at a rail crossing in Argentina early on Sunday, killing 17 people and injuring about 65, local officials said.

Several witnesses said the bus driver drove through the crossing's lowered safety barriers and ignored stop signs, the Clarin newspaper reported on its Web site. Others said the train sounded its horn in warning, but the bus failed to stop.

"It seems the driver of the bus passed when the barrier was down and the train cut the bus in half. ... It was inconceivably imprudent," Daniel Scioli, the provincial governor, told local television at the crash scene.

Television pictures showed the train partially derailed, with the wreckage of the bus lying alongside, torn in half.

Suitcases, clothing and twisted seats littered the scene of the accident, which took place just after 2:30 a.m. about 130 miles south of the capital Buenos Aires.

Among the dead were two children, local media reported. A police spokesman in Dolores said 11 people were still hospitalized late on Sunday.

The train had been on its way from the capital to the seaside resort town of Mar del Plata, while the bus was returning from the Atlantic coast. Some of the victims were coming back from holidays.

The drivers of the train and the bus survived the accident. They were held for questioning, the media reports said.