Emergency personnel stand as a crane rights a bus on the Spanish AP-7 motorway near Freginals, Amposta south of Tarragona following a fatal accident that claimed the lives of 13 foreign students an injured 44 others early on March 20, 2016. The students, enrolled at Barcelona University as part of the European Erasmus exchange programme, were returning from a traditional festival in the eastern city of Valencia when the driver “hit the railing on the right and swerved to the left so violently that the bus veered onto the other side of the highway,” Jordi Jane,who heads interior matters for the Catalonia region, said. PAU BARRENA / AFP

At least 13 people have been killed after a bus carrying foreign students crashed on a Spanish motorway between the cities of Barcelona and Valencia.

Most of the 57 people on board the bus were students on the Erasmus programme who were returning to Barcelona after a trip to a fireworks festival.

Footage from the scene showed a white-roofed coach lying on its side, surrounded by emergency vehicles.

The accident occurred near Freginals, 150km (93 miles) south of Barcelona.

Local officials had previously spoken of 14 dead.

The nationalities of those killed and the 43 people injured have not been confirmed, nor has the cause of the accident.

But Jordi Jane, Catalonia’s regional interior minister, said the driver of the coach “hit the railing on the right and swerved to the left so violently that the bus veered onto the other side of the highway”.

The bus then hit a vehicle coming in the opposite direction, injuring two people inside.