Six people were killed after a train crashed into a double-decker city bus in Canada's capital Ottawa during rush hour on Wednesday, an emergency official said.
The driver of the bus and five passengers died in the crash, according to Craig Watson, the transit union’s president.
A total of 31 passengers were transported to the hospital, with 11 in critical condition. Emergency crews are still on the scene assessing the causalities, according to Marc Messier, a spokesman for the Ottawa Fire Service.
Messier told CP24 television that none of the 103 passengers on the train was injured, although the train derailed.
"It is definitely a serious scene," he added.
Television images showed a heavily damaged red OC Transpo double-decker bus and firefighters and ambulances at the scene. The bus had left Fallowfield Station at 8:45 a.m., just a few minutes before the crash.
The bus appears to have driven straight through the lowered crossing barricade.
CP24 reported that some passengers on the bus tried to get the bus driver to stop because they realized a crash was imminent.
The Ottawa Citizen newspaper quoted a passenger on the bus, Robert Kurtenbach, who said that the vehicle "didn't appear to slow down" right before it hit the train.
He said the front of the bus slammed hard into the side of the train. Kurtenbach was thrown forward and people screamed, he said according to the newspaper.
"I could see bodies lying there," inside the bus. He did not estimate how many had been badly injured "but it was more than two or three," the Citizen quoted him as saying.
Canada's two big railroads -- Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd -- are reviewing safety standards after a deadly train crash on July 6 that killed 50 people and destroyed the center of a small Quebec town.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.