Visit Blanes

A 16-year-old Dutch schoolgirl has been killed in an accident involving a coach in northern Spain. Two other school children are seriously injured and 17 passengers are slightly injured.

The coach was carrying teachers and pupils from a secondary school, Canisius College, in the southern Dutch city of Nijmegen to Barcelona, when it turned over on the A7 motorway near the city of Gerona in north-east Spain.

There were 60 passengers on board. It is not clear what caused the accident. No other vehicles were involved. The tour operator says the driver was startled by something that crossed the motorway and he swerved to avoid a collision.

The injured have been taken to hospitals in the vicinity. Thirty-five passengers who were not hurt have been taken by another coach to the coastal resort of Calella on the Costa Brava.

The school is trying to get its pupils repatriated today. Emergency organisation SOS International has sent two teams to Gerona to assist where they can. Embassy staff will visit the accident victims later today.

Earlier this year, six Dutch tourists were killed and another 40 injured in a coach accident on the same motorway, 80 kilometres to the north.

- Source: Radio Netherlands, Oct. 19, 2009

The dead girl was later identified as 15-year-old Ilse Beekers, from Ooij, Netherlands.

Eyewitnesses say the Dutch driver of the coach took a freeway exit at too high a speed. Spanish police reportedly confirm the but may well have been traveling too fast.

Dutch newspaper De Gelderlander says a girl on the bus who was awake during the early-morning crash immediately called her father. According to her the driver was taking the exit too fast. She thought, ‘this can not turn out well,’ and seconds later the bus crashed through the guard rail.

The accident occured at 6:20 am near Bàscara, at exit 5 of the A7 in the direction of L’Escala.

The school children, who were on a study trip, will likely return home today.

Update, Oct. 20, 2009: Spanish police have arrested the driver on suspicion of reckless driving.