A Italian tourist bus driver was among three people killed when the vehicle collided with a tractor trailer on a highway in the northeast US on its way to Niagara Falls, reports said Thursday.
Alfredo Telemaco, from New York, died instantly in the crash late on Wednesday in the Pocono Mountain region of the state of Pennsylvania, about 120 kilometres northwest of New York.
Dozens of people were injured in the accident, several critically, and thirteen were taken to hospitals, some of them by helicopter, officials said.
Telemaco was one of 16 people on the bus, including 14 tourists and a guide, according to officials.
No information has been released concerning the other two victims.
Italy's foreign ministry said it had been informed by local coroners in the US that three people had died in the crash.
The mangled front end of the bus was left upright on the highway but wedged into the side of the tractor-trailer, which was sheared in half.
The cab came to rest on its side in the woods next to the road, one of its axles torn off.
Investigators were still trying to determine what happened, Monroe County Coroner Robert Allen was quoted as telling reporters.
The bus appears to have been operated by Italian tour operator Viaggidea, whose name is also on the bus and which takes tourists from New York to Niagara Falls, Canada and elsewhere around the country.
