Two people were killed and 16 injured in a bus crash on Friday morning in eastern France near the Swiss border, local authorities said, in one of the country's deadliest road accidents this year.

Source: Reuters

The crash happened at about 7 a.m. local time on the D22 road near the small town of Lent, in the Ain department northeast of Lyon, about 55 kilometres from the Swiss border. The bus was travelling from Lyon to Bourg-en-Bresse when it veered off the road, plunged into a ditch and struck a tree, according to local authorities and French broadcaster BFMTV. The Bourg-en-Bresse prosecutor's office said the bus was carrying 43 passengers, including 15 minors who were on their way to school.

Source: AFP via African News Agency / BFMTV

The prosecutor's office said the two people killed were a minor and a young adult. Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said the victims were a 7-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu wrote in a post on X that two children had died in the accident. Sixteen other people were injured, three of them in critical condition, the prefecture said; the remaining 13 were reported to have minor injuries.

The Ain prefecture activated its departmental crisis centre to coordinate the rescue. Lent's mayor, Yves Cristin, opened the town's community hall to shelter and assist those affected — he put the number affected at around 70 people, while the prefecture put it at about 40. Transport Minister Tabarot travelled to the scene, and Education Minister Édouard Geffray confirmed that students were among those involved in the crash.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into homicide by vehicle. The driver was taken to hospital with injuries and had not yet been questioned, the prosecutor's office said. Fabrice Pannekoucke, head of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, said authorities had not established the cause of the accident.

One detail remained unsettled in the first hours: Mayor Cristin described the vehicle as a school bus, while the prefecture identified it as an intercity bus. Both agreed it was carrying school students among its passengers on the morning run between Lyon and Bourg-en-Bresse.

Investigators will now work to establish how the bus left the road. No cause — mechanical, medical or otherwise — had been announced by Friday afternoon, and officials cautioned that the inquiry was at its earliest stage.