Only the seven members of the same family who traveled in the back managed to survive and flee after breaking the windows
The deadliest traffic accident of the last decade in Europe did not lack any of the traditional ingredients of this type of tragedy: long journey, rainy night, tired driver and road in a less suspicious state. The result 46 dead, including 12 children, all burned. The incident took place in western Bulgaria and the main characters were a group of tourists from North Macedonia who were returning to their homes in Skopje after spending the weekend in Istanbul.
A driver error – who could have suffered a health problem or fell asleep – or a technical failure of the vehicle caused the bus to crash around two in the morning on Tuesday while traveling on the Struma highway, forty kilometers south of Sofia, against the guardrail of the median and caught fire immediately, as confirmed by the director of the National Investigation Service, Borislav Sarafov.
The driver died instantly as a result of the impact and was unable to open the doors, so the travelers were trapped. Only seven survived who occupied the rear seats and managed to get out after breaking the glass. They belong to the same family.
One of the lucky ones said that most of the travelers slept until they were awakened by an explosion. As it is a diesel vehicle, a fuel that does not ignite, it was originally thought that the bus could carry some other additional fuel load bought cheaply in Turkey. The researchers are more in favor of the hypothesis that the detonation was caused by a malfunction or as a result of friction with the metallic bionde.
«Reduced to ashes»
Bulgarian Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov explained that the bodies were found “crammed inside and reduced to ashes.” “They are unrecognizable and will be identified by DNA samples taken by forensic doctors. The image is terrifying, terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like this before, “he added. The rescue teams will not forget the charred body of a mother with her two children, apparently twins, in her arms.
The vehicle was part of a caravan of four buses. This complicates the identification of the deceased – most of them belonged to the Albanian minority of North Macedonia – because apparently when they made rest stops there were travelers who changed buses.
The owner of the company that chartered the trip assured that the damaged bus was three years old and had passed all the technical examinations required by law. He added that for twenty years the company had not had a single problem.
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