Nine people, including five schoolchildren, were killed in Kerala when a chartered bus carrying pupils and teachers on an excursion rammed into a state transport bus in Palakkad late on Wednesday night.

Police said the chartered bus was travelling at 1.5 times the permitted speed, and was illegally fitted with neon lamps, strobe lights and a powerful sound system that could have distracted the driver — common violations that the authorities have been trying to curb with mixed success.

Some of the pupils, from the Baselios Vidyanikethan School in Mulanthuruthy, Ernakulam, have told the police the driver had ignored requests to slow down, and that a movie was playing loudly inside the bus.

The bus, carrying the children to Ooty in Tamil Nadu on a three-day excursion, crashed into a Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus from behind, mangling the right side of its rear portion.

Five pupils, a teacher, and three passengers from the rear seats of the KSRTC bus were killed.

After the crash, the chartered bus lost control and swerved into a swamp, from where passers-by and the police rescued the living and pulled out the dead.

The bus, chartered from a travel operator in Kottayam for the excursion by students of Classes X to XII, was carrying 49 people — 41 students, five teachers and the driver, helper and a cleaner. The KSRTC bus was travelling from Kottarakkara in Kollam to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu with 51 people.

State transport minister Antony Raju said 38 were injured in the accident, of whom 12 were serious and four were critical. They have been admitted to the district government hospital in Palakkad. It was unclear how many of the injured were schoolchildren.

The dead have been identified as Emmanuel C.S., Anjana Ajith, Diya Rajesh (all aged 17), Elsa Jose and Chris Winterbon Thomas (both 15), teacher V.K. Vishnu (33) and KSRTC bus passengers Rohith Raj, Anoop and Deepu.

Officers said the chartered bus was travelling at 97.7kmph, against the permitted 65kmph.

Driver Joemon, who suffered minor injuries, escaped on Thursday morning from a local hospital but was detained by the police in the afternoon.

Kerala High Court took suo motu cognisance of the incident and ordered the police to investigate who had issued the fitness certificate to the private bus in spite of the unauthorised add-ons.

Sources said many private buses, including those hired for school trips, had illegal neon and strobe lights and powerful sound systems — apparently so that the passengers could dance to loud music.