The accident happened just after 6am on Saturday morning on the southbound M5 in the West Midlands, between junctions 3 and 4.
There was fog in the area and the crash happened on a section of the motorway
where roadworks were under way.
Police said one passenger was killed in the accident. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the lorry had hit the coach from behind. No children were involved, police said.
A total of 20 people were injured, West Midlands Ambulance Service said. It sent seven vehicles to the scene and specialist doctors as well as paramedics.
Two people were seriously injured in the accident and the others were treated
for minor injuries. The ambulance service said they were mostly "walking
wounded".
Police said the motorway was closed in both directions near the Frankley
service stations and advised motorists to avoid the area and instead use the
M6 and M42.
Eye witness Paul Guppy told BBC News there were fog patches on the motorway at the time of the crash. He was driving on the opposite carriageway at about 6.40am.
"There were fog patches, because I was driving through it with my fog lights on. That area is renowned for having fog, there's a lot of low-lying land," he said.
"It was quite horrendous at the time, and then it cleared. Whether the fog was a contributory thing, I don't know."
The coach seemed to have been hit from the rear, on its offside, and was leaning, virtually intact, against a crash barrier, he said.
Local hospitals were put on alert to receive the injured from the crash.
The M5 was the scene of a devastating crash last November, which killed seven people and left 51 people injured when 34 vehicles were involved in a pile up in thick fog.
The accident, the worst in Britain this decade, happened between junctions 24 and 25 of the northbound section of the motorway in Somerset.
Cars and lorries involved in it were caught up first in the collision then a fireball which caused massive destruction.
The interim findings of accident investigators earlier this month found that it was most likely to have been caused by thick fog and ruled out the possibility that smoke from a nearby fireworks display had obscured drivers' vision.
Eye witness Paul Guppy told BBC News there were fog patches on the motorway at the time of the crash. He was driving on the opposite carriageway at about 6.40am.
"There were fog patches, because I was driving through it with my fog lights on. That area is renowned for having fog, there's a lot of low-lying land," he said.
"It was quite horrendous at the time, and then it cleared. Whether the fog was a contributory thing, I don't know."
The coach seemed to have been hit from the rear, on its offside, and was leaning, virtually intact, against a crash barrier, he said.
Local hospitals were put on alert to receive the injured from the crash.
The M5 was the scene of a devastating crash last November, which killed seven people and left 51 people injured when 34 vehicles were involved in a pile up in thick fog.
The accident, the worst in Britain this decade, happened between junctions 24 and 25 of the northbound section of the motorway in Somerset.
Cars and lorries involved in it were caught up first in the collision then a fireball which caused massive destruction.
The interim findings of accident investigators earlier this month found that it was most likely to have been caused by thick fog and ruled out the possibility that smoke from a nearby fireworks display had obscured drivers' vision.
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