Three Dutch tourists have been killed and 26 injured, some of them seriously, in a coach crash in the south of Portugal.

According to Portuguese television, the dead are two women aged 26 and 60 and a 50-year-old man.

The accident happened shortly after midnight Dutch time close to the city of Albufeira when the coach skidded off the road and went down an embankment.

It is unclear why the coach left the road and there is speculation the driver ‘had become ill’. He was seriously injured in the crash and police have already spoken to him, broadcaster Nos reports.

The coach was carrying Dutch holidaymakers who had just arrived at Faro airport and were being taken to their hotels. They were travelling with Arke and Holland International and had left Schiphol on a flight at 19.20 on Wednesday evening.

There were 34 tourists in the bus at the time, travel organisation TUI said. Fifteen of them are still being treated in hospital.