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Fourteen people, including a priest, have been killed in a bus crash while travelling home from a religious event in Spain.
The incident, which saw a bus plunge down a ravine in Murcia in southern Spain, was the worst such accident in the country for 13 years, officials said.
The bus was carrying passengers to their home village of Bullas back from the capital Madrid, where, according to media, they had been to a church ceremony.
The driver was charged with homicide and negligence, the prefect of the region, Joaquin Bascunana, told media, adding that it was thought the bus was travelling too fast.
The driver and his colleague tested negative for drugs and alcohol, he said.
Spanish media cited passengers saying that the driver had shouted before the crash that the coach’s brakes were not working properly.
Ten of those on board, including Bullas’s local priest, Fr Miguel Conesa Andúgar, 36, died in the crash.
Four others died later in hospital, the regional government said. A further 28 people were injured, 10 of them seriously.
More than 200 emergency workers rushed to the scene and worked through the night tending to the wounded, the regional government said.
The regional authorities decreed three days of mourning.
Spain’s royal palace said King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were to attend the funerals for the victims on Monday.
It was the worst coach accident in Spain since 2001, when 19 retirees died in a crash near Huelva in the southwest of the country.
Spanish authorities have cracked down on road safety in recent years by increasing fines and launching shock road safety campaigns in the media.
The number of deaths on Spain’s roads fell by 72 per cent between 2003 and 2013, the interior ministry said in January.
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