A bus carrying a group of Canadian junior hockey players has collided with a semi-trailer on a rural highway in Saskatchewan, killing 14 people, Canadian media reported citing police.
Fourteen more were injured -- including three critically -- in the accident involving the Humboldt Broncos team bus, which was heading north for a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoff game against the Nipawin Hawks, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix reported.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector Ted Monroe had said at a news conference late Friday that there were "fatalities among the passengers on the bus" and "a number of serious injuries".
"It is a significant accident, we had a tractor trailer and a bus collide," Monroe told reporters, declining to go into further detail about the victims.
Police said the crash took place about 28 kilometres north of Tisdale, Saskatchewan as the bus was travelling on highway 35.
"This is much bigger than anyone can begin to imagine," Broncos team president Kevin Garinger told the Canadian broadcaster CBC. "We are just in utter disbelief and shock at the loss thats fallen upon us."
"Its a horrible accident, my God," said Darren Opp, president of the Nipawin Hawks hockey team. "Its very, very bad."