- At least 21 people have died in a serious bus accident in Venice’s Mestre district.
- 15 other bus passengers were injured – five of them seriously.
- According to news agencies, the bus fell from an elevated road onto the railway tracks.
- According to Italian media, it is said to be a shuttle bus to a campsite.
Emergency services have been at the scene of the accident for several hours with several ambulances. The gas-powered bus with around 40 people on board crashed onto the tracks and caught fire immediately after impact. The railway line between Mestre on the mainland and the lagoon city of Venice was interrupted.
Legend:
The bus broke through the parapet of an elevated road in the Mestre district of Venice and fell onto the railway tracks.
REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri
The exact circumstances of the accident are still unclear. The path of the bus is being checked; possible clues could be provided by skid marks or the condition of the road surface, according to the police investigating on site. There are many hypotheses about the cause of the accident, including the driver falling asleep.
The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, spoke of a “terrible tragedy” that struck his city in the evening. “An apocalyptic scene, there are no words,” wrote Brugnaro in a post on the online platform X, formerly Twitter. Minors were also among the dead, wrote the president of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, on Facebook. The number of deaths could still rise.
“We were supposed to take the next bus, but it didn’t come, and then we heard it,” young German tourists who were also at the Hu campsite in Marghera told reporters. “It’s a tragedy.”
As the Ansa news agency further reports, there were probably tourists of various nationalities on board. According to the prefecture, the fatalities identified so far include one person from Germany and five Ukrainian citizens. The driver of the bus, an Italian, was also among those killed, said Prefect Michele di Bari to Ansa.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her dismay after the bus accident. “My thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends. “I am in close contact with Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi to follow the news of this tragedy,” Meloni said in a statement.