New York, New York - A double-decker tour bus collided with a second bus in New York Thursday evening, wounding dozens and sending at least 18 to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, emergency responders said.

The accident occurred around 7:00 PM EDT in lower Manhattan along First Avenue near the Gramercy Park area, New York deputy fire chief Kevin Murphy said.

Images of the scene showed an open-top double-decker tour bus smashed into the rear-end of a city-operated bus.

"Both buses seem to have been fully occupied," said Paul Hopper, a deputy chief with the fire department's emergency medical services division.

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"We've transported at this time 18 patients" to local hospitals, Hopper said. "None have any life-threatening injury."

Another 63 passengers in the two vehicles were under evaluation by medical personnel at the scene, he said.

"Many injuries are just cuts, bruises, scrapes, some suspected fractures, some head and neck injuries as well," Hopper said.

Murphy said fire brigades used ropes and ladders to remove passengers from the double-decker bus because one of the doors to the vehicle had been damaged, and would not speculate on any cause of the crash.