YOSHKAR-OLA, January 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Passengers from the bus that collided with a truck in the Nizhny Novgorod Region on Friday morning were carried by passing transport to Yoshkar-Ola, the press service of the Emergencies Ministry's regional department said.

At the bus station in Yoshkar-Ola, ambulance teams and psychologists of the emergencies department met the arriving buses. Passengers who needed medical care were taken to hospitals in the city.

The accident occurred on the Moscow-Ufa federal highway in the Nizhny Novgorod Region at about 04:10 Moscow time (00:10 GMT) on Friday. A Mercedes bus carrying about 50 passengers on the way from Moscow to Yoshkar-Ola collided with a milk tanker. According to the preliminary reports, two people, the drivers in both vehicles, died, and eleven passengers in the bus were injured. They were taken to a local hospital.

Traffic police suppose it was the bus driver's fault. The bus ran onto the other lane.

An official of the Russian Emergencies Ministry told Itar-Tass that an EMERCOM plane was in readiness for possible evacuation of injured people from the Nizhny Novgorod Region to Moscow.

If necessary, if medical specialists decide to evacuate injured people, the ministry's Ilyushin-76 plane with medical equipment is ready to fly out from Ramenskoye airport, located near Moscow, to Nizhny Novgorod, the official said.

Aircraft of the Emergencies Ministry's Volga regional centre were also on standby, he added.