Four killed in Moscow as bus drives into underpass

Moscow : At least four people were killed and nine others injured after a bus ran over them in a pedestrian underpass here on Monday, Russia's Interior Ministry said.

The Interior Ministry's Moscow division said in a statement that considered causes of the incident which occurred in western Moscow include "failure of the driver to control the vehicle or a malfunction of the vehicle", Xinhua reported.

The driver has been detained and is now being interrogated by police, it said.

Investigators and traffic police were examining the scene.

"According to the driver, the bus, while being at a bus stop, suddenly began to move independently despite the driver's attempts to stop it because the braking system did not work," the Russian Investigative Committee said in a separate statement.

The committee has launched criminal proceedings on the grounds of "providing services that fail to meet security requirements and violation of traffic and vehicle operation rules".

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin tweeted: "We rendered urgent assistance. I sympathised with the relatives and friends of the victims."