Bus drives into pedestrian underpass in Moscow, kills 5

Five people were killed when a city bus ploughed into a pedestrian underpass in western Moscow on Monday, traffic police said.

"A bus drove into a pedestrian underpass," a traffic police spokesman, Artyom Kolesnikov, told AFP.

"According to preliminary information, five people died."

There were also unconfirmed reports that some 15 people had been injured.

Footage broadcast on national television showed a bus driving down the stairs, running over several pedestrians.

The incident happened on Kutuzovsky Avenue, near the Slavyansky Bulvar metro station in the western part of the Russian capital.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident but Russian news agencies said that the driver had been detained.

The Interfax news agency said investigators were looking into whether the incident had occurred as a result of a technical fault with the bus.

"There are dead and wounded," tweeted Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin. "We are providing emergency aid," he said, offering condolences to families of the victims.

(Source: Agencies)

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