A delivery truck has ploughed into a bus carrying American students in northern California, killing ten people and injuring at least 30.
The bus was bringing high school students form Los Angeles to tour Humboldt State University on Thursday, which is about a six-hour drive north of San Francisco.
"My understanding is the FedEx truck crossed the highway divide, and it was a head on collision with our bus," Joyce Lopes, a university official, told AFP.
The university said the dead included the drivers of the two vehicles.
Images of the bus showed a fire-gutted wreck, with the once-white metal exterior blackened and crumpled.
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On the bus were low-income and first-generation prospective university students, travelling as part of a university-sponsored program to introduce them to the college and other prospective students.
"Students were transported to six different hospitals, because it was a fairly remote place ... where the accident occurred," Lopes explained, adding it was taking time to track down each student.
Two bus passengers were in critical condition, said Enloe Medical Center, which had received 11 of the injured passengers.
Four were in fair condition and five had been discharged, the statement added.
Another local hospital had discharged all five of the injured crash victims it had treated, according to the New York Times.
"The Humboldt State community sends our deepest condolences to all those involved in this tragic accident. We are saddened beyond words," the university said in a statement.
"Our hearts go out to those who have been affected, and we are here to support them, and their families, in any way possible," HSU president Rollin Richmond had said earlier.
