AKIPRESS.COM - A truck slammed into a tour bus carrying high school students in northern California, killing at least nine people and injuring 32, the California Highway Patrol said.

Highway Patrol spokeswoman Tracy Hoover said the driver of the FedEx truck lost control of the vehicle, crossed over a divider on Interstate 5, side-swiped a car and then smashed head-on into the tour bus around 5:30pm on Thursday.

Apart from the driver, the bus was carrying between 44 and 48 students and three or four chaperones heading to Humboldt State University for a campus tour.

The driver of the truck was killed and 7 students on the bus were among the dead, according to local reports.

The injured were taken by air and land ambulances to local hospitals with different injuries.

No-one in the car was killed, though the driver was sent to hospital with unspecified injuries.

Humboldt State University president Rollin Richmond said students from southern California had been traveling to the college campus for a spring preview event, ABC news agency reported.