Five killed in California as pole slices bus in half

Five people have been killed and several others have lost limbs after a bus veered off a central California highway and struck a pole that sliced the vehicle nearly in half.

Rescuers pulled out “bags of body parts” from the survivors of the crash on Route 99, where the speeding bus hit the pole of a highway exit sign head-on, said Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke.

It sheared straight through the bus, stopping at the first rear axle “with a great impact”, he said.