Two men have died after a crash between a bus and a lorry in Cambridgeshire, which also injured 18 other people, seven seriously.

The collision happened at about 7.30am on Tuesday on the A47 Thorney Road in Guyhirn, a village near Wisbech. The incident was attended by paramedics, a Magpas air ambulance, fire and rescue crews and police.

The dead men were from Northamptonshire and Norfolk, according to Insp Jamie Langwith of Cambridgeshire police. Speaking of the injured, he said: “We’ve got injuries consisting of broken legs up until brain injuries. There are no life-threatening injuries at this stage but they are serious.”

Langwith said the bus driver was among the injured, but the lorry driver was not. The two dead men were passengers on the bus.

The collision happened outside Bretts Transport depot. The transport operator First Bus confirmed one of its vehicles was involved, but a spokesman did not comment further. A three-mile stretch of the A47 remains closed.

Footage from the scene shows the bus, which had been travelling eastbound, lodged into the side of the lorry, which appears to have been heading westbound.

A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said: “A total of 20 people [including the two who later died], who were travelling in the bus, were injured. They have been taken to Peterborough City hospital and the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn.”

An East of England ambulance service spokesman said the trust had dispatched seven ambulance crews, three ambulance officers, two rapid response vehicles, a hazardous area response team and a Magpas air ambulance to the scene and several seriously injured patients were been cared for.

Dan Read, a critical care paramedic for Magpas air ambulance, said: “We can’t praise the East of England ambulance service and paramedic crews enough for their excellent teamwork.”