NEW DELHI: At least 18 people, many of them children, were killed on Friday when a passenger train smashed into a school bus at a crossing in the northern Indian state of Punjab, officials and reports said. A spokesman for Northern Railways told the NDTV news channel that the driver of the bus crashed through the barriers at the railway crossing due to poor visibility.

“The gate was closed for the passage of the train. The bus crashed through the barriers and into the oncoming train due to the fog... The accident was the fault of the driver,” the official said.

A state government official in Moga district, where the accident took place, said the dead included eight children.

A Moga district administrator, Satwant Singh, said that 16 bodies had been recovered and rescue work was continuing.—AFP