Five dead as tour bus overturns on I-90 near Buffalo

A tour bus returning to New York City from Niagara Falls overturned Friday on Interstate 90 near Pembroke, about 25 miles east of Buffalo, killing five people and injuring dozens, New York State Police said. The crash occurred shortly before 12:30 p.m., officials said, and involved a full-size coach carrying 54 people, including children.

State police and other authorities said the bus veered into the median, overcorrected and rolled off the south embankment into a ditch. Trooper James OCallaghan described the scene as having "multiple fatalities, multiple entrapments and multiple injuries." Maj. Andre Ray later identified the five people pronounced dead at the scene as Xie Hongzhuo, 22, of Beijing; Pinki Changrani, 60, of East Brunswick, New Jersey; Zhang Xiaolan, 55, of Jersey City; Jian Mingli, 56, of Jersey City; and Shankar Kumar Jha, 65, of Madhu Bani, India.

The driver, identified by state police as Bin Shao, 55, of Flushing, New York, survived and was cooperating with investigators. Authorities said preliminary findings rule out mechanical failure and impairment, and they believe the driver became distracted, lost control and overcorrected. The National Transportation...