The bus apparently lost control on Interstate 90 near Pembroke, about 40 kilometres east of Buffalo. People inside were ejected as the windows shattered.

“At this time we have multiple fatalities, multiple entrapments and multiple injuries,” said Trooper James O’Callaghan, a spokesperson for the New York State Police, adding that children were on board.

O’Callaghan said most passengers were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino ethnicity, and translators were being brought to the scene.

The bus was travelling eastbound when it went into the median and ended up in a ditch on the right side of the road, O’Callaghan said.

“The driver is alive and well. We’re working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control,” O’Callaghan said without elaborating.

The Mercy Flight air medical transport service said its three helicopters and three more from other services transported people from the crash site to area hospitals.

“It’s a full-size tour bus. Heavy amount of damage,” O’Callaghan said.

“Most people I’m assuming on the bus did not have a seat belt on, that is the reason why we have so many ejected people on this bus.”

In response to a bus crash in New York in 2023, a state law requires seat belt use on charter buses built on or after November 28, 2016.

The age of the bus in Friday’s crash wasn’t immediately known.

The New York State Thruway Authority said a lengthy stretch of the roadway had been shut down in both directions and drivers were being urged to avoid the area.

“There was glass all over the road and people’s stuff all over the road,” Powell Stephens of Medina told The Buffalo News after he drove by the crash.

“Windows were all shattered.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on the social platform X that she was briefed on the “tragic tour bus accident” and that her office was working with police and local officials.