KIEV - A freight train careened off the tracks and slammed into a passenger bus at a railroad crossing in southern Ukraine on Thursday, killing 14 people, including two children, emergency officials said.
The crash happened near the village of Novoselovka at a railroad crossing that did not have gates.
Preliminary information indicated that the train had violated safety rules, causing its engine to jump the track at the crossing point and slam into the bus, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.
Information about the condition of the train driver was not immediately available, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Oleh Oleksandrov said.
The statement did not elaborate and officials could not be reached for further comment.
Emergency crews were working at the crash scene in the Odessa region, 300 miles south of the capital, Kiev.
Oleksandrov said two of the dead were children. The ministry later said in a statement that eight people were hospitalized with injuries, and four were in serious condition.
A similar accident in May 2004 involving a freight train and a passenger bus in the same region killed 15 people.