Firefighters work until dawn to clear wreckage of bus crash that killed 21 people in Venice

A bus carrying dozens of people plummeted 15 metres from an elevated road in Venice, causing a fiery crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15, mostly foreign tourists returning to a nearby campsite.

A bus carrying dozens of people plummeted 15 metres from an elevated road in Venice, causing a fiery crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15, mostly foreign tourists returning to a nearby campsite.

Those who died in the Tuesday night crash included at least four Ukrainians and a German citizen, according to Venice prefecture.

At least two of the dead were children, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said, adding that many of the people involved in the accident were "young."

Firefighters worked until dawn Wednesday to clear the wreckage. Later in the morning, traffic was slowly passing the spot where the bus burst through a guardrail and a rusted fence.

The accident scene drew the attention of passersby. A couple of locals said that the overpass was more than 60 years old and that nothing similar had ever happened there, while a man wearing a biker jacket stopped his motorcycle to tie to a post a bouquet of plastic flowers.

The bus was carrying foreign tourists from Venice's Piazzale Roma to the Hu campground on Tuesday evening when it fell from an elevated street next to railway tracks in the borough of Mestre, catching fire. Tourists frequently stay in boroughs across the lagoon from the canals of Venice's famous historic center to find cheaper accommodations.

The injured, including five in serious condition, included French, Spanish, Austrian and Croatian nationals, local officials said. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that two people from Spain were injured in the accident, and both were in hospital and in good condition.