A 16-year-old girl has died and at least nine other students were seriously injured this morning after a school bus came off the road in the town of Villanueva del Aceral in Avila and then overturned.

The driver, 62-year-old G.F.V.H. from nearby Magazos was arrested for manslaughter as soon as he was released from hospital.

The accident happened at 8:10 Thursday morning at kilometer 68.5 of the CL-605 where, for reasons as yet unknown, the bus went off the road and then overturned.  Initial reports suggest there might have been a collision with a car going in the opposite direction, and some witnesses have suggested that the driver was going to fast to take the corner safely.

The dead student, 16-year-old J.S.M, who was travelling in the bus with one of her sisters at the time of the accident, was from the town of Fontiveros, where she lived with her parents and nine siblings.  The mayor of the town, María del Carmen Calleja, declared a day of mourning.

17 young people aged between 16 and 18 were travelling in the bus at the time. Nine people were injured, four of them seriously.  The four with serious injuries are all still in hospital.  They are in a critical, but stable condition.

Staff from the service station on the junction where the accident happened and from an adjacent bar ran to the scene as soon as the accident happened.  According to eye witnesses, they pulled many of the students out from inside the bus before  the paramedics, fire fighters and police arrived at the scene.