Manhattan ? Fifteen people were taken to hospitals Monday after a charter bus carrying Job Corps students collided with a tractor-trailer in northeast Kansas, overturned and briefly caught fire.

The bus was making a legal U-turn about 2:20 p.m. Monday on a state highway west of Manhattan when it was struck from behind by a truck carrying a load of road construction materials, police said. The bus skidded into the median, overturned and briefly caught fire.

Fifteen people were taken to Mercy Hospital Regional Medical Center in Manhattan, where nine were treated and released, hospital spokeswoman Jana Broadbent said.

Two were admitted in stable condition, Broadbent said. Three were still being treated Monday evening but were expected to be released soon. The sixth person was transferred to Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center in Topeka and was upgraded to stable condition, she said.

Twenty-two people were on the bus when the accident occurred, the Kansas Highway Patrol said. Initial reports put the number of injured as high as 18.

Chuck Gunnels, regional director of Arrow Stage Lines in Kansas City, Mo., said the charter bus was carrying students from the Flint Hills Job Corps Center in Manhattan back to the city from a trip to Kansas City.

Two of the highway’s four lanes were closed about 4 miles west of Manhattan, Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. Greg Harkrader said, adding that the debris was expected to be cleared Monday evening.

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