A 16-year-old Dutch girl has died and 19 more people, most of them students, have been injured this morning when the coach they were travelling in crashed as it was leaving the the AP-7 motorway in la Escala (Girona) just after 6am.

The girl died almost instantly and her body was taken away from the scene of the accident by undertakers.

Two of the 19 people injured in the crash are in a serious condition and are being treated at the Hospital Josep Trueta de Girona along with six of the less seriously injured passengers.  The other 11 injured passengers are being treated, mainly for broken bones, cuts and bruises, at the regional hospital in Figueres (Girona).

Eye-witnesses said that the upper deck had collapsed on impact, but fire fighters who attended the scene of the accident confirmed that the vehicle, a double-decker coach belonging to the Lanting Reizen company, had withstood the impact well.

The remaining 40 uninjured passengers, students and their teachers, were transferred to the hotel de Calella (Girona), where they had been heading for a holiday on the coast before the accident occurred.  They are being looked after by a team of psychologists.