Police Friday ruled out alcohol as a factor in a bus accident that killed two American students and injured dozens of others.
The yellow double-decker bus was carrying summer school students and staff to an arts festival when it overturned Thursday as it turned off a highway near Wheatley, six miles east of Oxford, said Thames Valley Police Chief Inspector John Wheeler. No other vehicle was reported involved in the incident, in which 59 people were injured, most of them American teenagers.Police Friday said the bus driver, who was slightly hurt, was detained Thursday but released on bail after a breath test showed no signs of alcohol.
"Alcohol wasn't the cause. It was a negative test," said a police spokesman on condition of anonymity.
One witness said the accident scene was filled with "utter chaos and mayhem."
"There were girls and boys trapped in the coach and others strewn up the bank," said ambulance superintendent Robin Finlayson. "They were crying, bawling and bloody. Many had crush injuries."
Police identified the two dead students as Autumn Dubose, 18, of Lilburn, Ga., and Lawrence Levine, 16, of Chappaqua, N.Y.
Four of the 59 injured people were seriously hurt, said Police Chief Inspector Laurie Fray.
Most of the 47 Americans on the bus were gifted students on a four-week summer school course at Oxford University's Magdalen College organized by the Oxford Advanced Studies Program in New York, said American coordinator Paul Beresford-Hill. Their ages ranged from 16 to 20.
Meanwhile, a bomb apparently planted by the Irish Republican Army tore through London's International Stock Exchange Friday but the extremists tipped off two news agencies, giving authorities time to evacuate the building, police said.
Police Cmdr. Hugh Moore reported the device had caused extensive damage to the visitor's gallery, which looks down on the ground-level trading floor, but that the operational areas of the grand financial building were unaffected. No one was injured.
Also, a crude incendiary device was sent to Princess Diana at Buckingham Palace, Scotland Yard said.
The palace's security system spotted it Thursday within minutes and anti-terrorist squad officers took it away for forensic examination, a police statement said.