Foreign students killed in highway crash in NE Japan city

TOKYO, May 17 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed including two Nepalese students when a large truck crashed into a bus on a highway in northeastern Japan, local police said Wednesday.

According to the police, the truck smashed into the bus while it was parked on the hard shoulder of the Tohoku Expressway in Kurihara City, Miyagi Prefecture on Tuesday night.

The bus had stopped due to engine trouble, the police and local media said.

Two male Nepalese students and a female Japanese bus driver in her 50s were killed. They were standing on the road near the back of the bus when the truck rammed into it, the police said.

The truck driver, a man in his 30s, sustained heavy injuries, the police also said.

All students aboard the bus, 39 from Nepal and one from Bangladesh, were outside the vehicle when the crash occurred at around 8:10 p.m (local time), police said.

According to local reports, the students, some of whom were studying Japanese in Miyagi Prefecture, were on their way to attend their part-time jobs in neighboring Iwate Prefecture, when the fatal collision occurred.

Local media reports said the bus pulled over on the highway due to the engine possibly emitting smoke and experiencing other problems.

Local police and accident officials are looking into exactly how the deadly crash occurred on that particular section of the road, which has two lanes in each direction and sweeps round to the right.