Desk Report
Published: 23 Nov 2021, 10:45 pm
Photo: BBC
At least 46 people, including 12 children, died when a bus
crashed and caught fire in western Bulgaria, officials say.
The bus was registered in North Macedonia and most of those
on board were tourists returning from a trip to Istanbul in Turkey, reports BBC.
It rammed a crash barrier on a motorway south-west of the
capital Sofia at about 02:00 local time (00:00 GMT).
Seven people escaped from the bus and were taken to hospital
with burns.
Four-year-old twin boys were among those killed in the
crash.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov visited the
"terrifying scene" and said the survivors had been badly burned.
The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear.
Bulgarian officials described how the bus swerved off the motorway and tore away
a 50m (164ft) section of the crash barrier, but it was unclear if that was before
or after it caught fire.
Pictures of the aftermath showed a section of the road where
the barrier had been shorn off. No other vehicles were involved in the
accident.
The mayor of the nearby village of Pernik said the motorway
was in poor condition on that section and there were often accidents in the
area.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani told reporters the
coach party had been returning to the capital Skopje from a weekend holiday
trip to Istanbul.
Bulgarian media said the bus had been travelling as part of
a convoy of four buses and had stopped off at a petrol station near Sofia about
an hour before the accident. The other buses, which were a few minutes ahead,
returned to North Macedonia safely.
The victims have not yet been officially named, but officials
said they included 12 children, and many young people aged between 20 and 30.
A young couple who were due to be married were among those
killed. Macedonian reports said 27-year old Gazmend Ukali and Albina Beluli,
23, from the north-western town of Tetovo, had gone to Istanbul to celebrate
Ukali's birthday.
Albania's foreign minister indicated that most, if not all,
the passengers were ethnic Albanians from North Macedonia.
Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said he had spoken to
one of the survivors, who told him that passengers were asleep when the sound
of an explosion woke them.
"He and the other six survivors broke the windows of
the bus and managed to escape and save themselves," Mr Zaev told
reporters.
The bus belonged to Besa Trans, a travel company that
organises trips in Europe.Within hours of the crash, relatives of people who
travelled to Turkey with Besa Trans last week gathered outside the firm's
office in Skopje, anxiously looking for information.
Dzelal Bakiu told reporters in the Macedonian capital he was
concerned for his nephew and had not heard from him since learning of the
crash. He tried to contact the travel agency but had not been able to get any
information.
Bulgaria's interim Prime Minister Stefan Yanev described the
incident as "an enormous tragedy".
"Let's hope we learn lessons from this tragic incident
and we can prevent such incidents in the future," he told reporters as he
visited the crash site.
Investigative service chief Borislav Sarafov said
"human error by the driver or a technical malfunction are the two initial
versions for the accident".
The area around the site of Tuesday's incident on the Struma
motorway was sealed off and footage from the scene showed the charred vehicle,
gutted by the fire.
Mr Sarafov told reporters that it appeared both drivers had
been killed in the crash so no-one was able to open the doors.