Yahoo TV

STORY: Nearly two dozen people died after a bus careened off a highway near Venice, Italy on Tuesday, many of them tourists.

Local authorities confirmed five of the victims were Ukrainian and one was German.

The bus was also carrying passengers from France and Croatia, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

The tourist bus veered off the road and fell off an overpass in the district of Mestre, which is connected to Venice by a bridge before crashing into electricity lines near railway tracks, where it caught fire at around 7:45 p.m. local time.

At least a dozen more people are injured, several of them in critical condition, according to Venice officials.

There are fears the death toll could rise.

Authorities say 40 passengers were onboard the coach, not including the driver, a 40-year-old Italian who was among those killed.

While the cause of the accident remains unclear, one line of official enquiry was that the driver was ill before the crash.

Late on Tuesday evening, rescuers were seen struggling to remove the wreckage of the bus to make sure no more passengers were trapped inside.

One Venice official told Sky Italia TV the firefighters had difficulty getting most of the bodies out as the bus had been totally crushed.