Bus on fire after crash (illustration)
Bus on fire after crash (illustration)Reuters

No fewer than 42 people were killed on Friday, in one of the most lethal crashes ever to have occurred in France.

A truck and a bus collided and both caught on fire in the traffic accident, which took place in southwest France near the town of Puisseguin to the east of Bordeaux.

The bus was carrying elderly people from a nearby town on their way to a holiday, according to the Sud Ouest paper. 

Local TV noted that the pensioners had just left the nearby town of Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps.

At least 41 of the elderly passengers and the driver of the truck were killed in the crash and fire. Only eight were able to escape the bus, and five of them are wounded, reports BBC.

The accident is said to be the most lethal traffic accident in France since a 1982 crash in Beaune that left 52 people dead.

French President Francois Hollande said on Twitter that the government "is fully mobilized on this terrible tragedy."