Tributes have poured in after a young Essex schoolgirl was killed when a jet-ski ploughed into a pedal boat in the Mediterranean.

Tracy Slatter, 18, from the Bight, South Woodham Ferrers, was on board the boat with a friend off the resort of Salou on Spain's Costa Dorada on Wednesday. She died instantly.

Witnesses described how the jet-ski, being driven by a couple of Dutch teenagers, almost ran over the pedal boat.

The second accident victim, Lyndsay Axcell, 18, also from South Woodham, was tonight being treated for a dislocated shoulder at a hospital in Salou. Her parents were flying out to be with her.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "Our sympathy and thoughts go out to her family. This was a tragic accident."

The two girls had gone to the popular resort on their own for a week's holiday with Airtours.

A spokeswoman for the travel company was "outraged" by the accident and called on the Spanish authorities to control the use of jet-skis in their resorts.

It is believed part of the bay at Salou is usually cordoned off with buoys for non-motorised boats, but these buoys had been removed as the end of the summer season approached.

Tracy, a pupil at the William de Ferrers school, was studying for A-levels in sociology, geography and business studies.

Keven Hearn, senior deputy headmaster at the school, said Tracy was "popular, bright and hardworking."

He also called for tighter controls on the use of jet-skis.

He said Tracy had been given special permission to have time off school to go on holiday with friends.

He said: "There was a special assembly first thing in the morning when the news was broken to the sixth form. There really is a very, very black mood all over the school.

"She was a very popular girl and she had a lot of friends. Some of the students simply had to go home because they could not come to terms with it."

He said Tracy - who has a brother Ashley, in year nine at the school - had been a keen swimmer.

He said a memorial service would be held at the school for the teenager.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.