Five people have been killed after a train hit a double-decker bus ripping off the front of the vehicle in a rush-hour smash.
Witnesses said that the bus appeared to drive straight through a lowered crossing barrier on a busy street in the centre of the Canadian capital.
Ottawa Police and Fire officials said that five passengers travelling on the bus had been killed and that six passengers were injured.
He said there were no injuries on the Via Rail passenger train but all of Ottawa's first responders were sent to the scene.
The accident happened just outside a suburban train station in the city's west end at around 8.45am local time, the middle of the morning commute.
Pascal Lolgis, who witnessed the crash, said the bus appeared to drive through a lowered crossing barrier across the Ottawa to Toronto line.
"Boom! It went into the train like that. He just didn't stop."
A second witness, Mark Cogan, said the rail barrier had been down but the bus carried on travelling on to t.
"The train is going through and I was just looking around, just watching things happen. And noticed that in the bus lane, the double-decker bus ... I saw him, and he just kept going.
"I just thought maybe there's a side way around or something, but instantly, he just ... he smoked the train. He went through the guard rail and just hammered the train, and then it was just mayhem."
The train tracks in the area cross both a major city road and a transit line reserved solely for buses.
Transportation Safety Board of Canada spokesman Chris Krepski tells CBC News Network investigation could take as long as a year.
