More than 40 die as bus driver 'ignores' train warning siren

Officials said 38 people died at the scene and five more in hospital after the accident, outside the town of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The bus driver apparently ignored a siren indicating an oncoming train and attempted to cross the track.

The victims included a child and two teenagers.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov reacted by ordering payments of 8,000 to the victims’ families and demanding automated gates at all railway crossings.

In another incident, a van crammed with farm workers crashed head-on into a truck in Poland while trying to overtake in dense fog, killing all 18 people inside.

The van was designed to carry six people, yet three times as many were squeezed in on wooden boxes and planks without seatbelts.

Police said the crash happened just after sunrise in thick fog. It is said to have happened on a slippery road near Nowe Miasto, 50 miles south of Warsaw. Fourteen of the victims were men and four were women. All were Polish.

The passengers were seasonal workers being driven to an orchard in one of Poland’s best known apple and plum-growing regions.Two passengers initially survived with serious injuries and were taken to a hospital, but they both died there.