(Sofia) Forty-six people, including twelve minors, died in the night from Monday to Tuesday in Bulgaria in a bus accident that caught fire on the highway.
Most of the victims are from North Macedonia, where the bus was registered, said Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who immediately went to Sofia to meet the seven survivors at the hospital.
They were largely part of the Albanian minority, according to Bulgarian police. A Belgian also died, according to Zaev.
“It’s a great tragedy,” reacted the latter. “Twelve of them were under 18”, including five children, “and the rest were between 20 and 30”.
According to local media, they were on their way to Skopje, returning from a trip to Turkey.
PHOTO STOYAN NENOV, REUTERS
Through the windows
The tragedy took place around 2 a.m. (7 p.m. EST) on the highway near the village of Bosnek, 40 km south of Sofia, said Commissioner Nikolay Nikolov, head of the Disaster Relief Service speaking on the BNT public television.
According to the account of one of the survivors, “the passengers were sleeping when an explosion occurred”, reported Zoran Zaev, quoted by the MIA news agency.
The seven survivors, who were in the back of the vehicle, “managed to smash one of the windows” and escape the blaze.
They are part of the same family and among them is a 16-year-old girl, said the Minister of Health of North Macedonia, Venko Filipce, also on the spot.
“The driver died instantly, so there was no one to open the doors,” National Police Chief Stanimir Stanev told television.
“Traumatized”
The images broadcast on television showed the black carcass of the bus, which violently struck the guardrail before igniting.
The road had been recently renovated with funds from the EU, of which Bulgaria has been a member since 2007. But this section had very steep passages, without dividing lines, according to a road safety association, which had previously reported the problem to the authorities.
“The survivors are traumatized, they have lost loved ones, children. They jumped out of the windows, ”recounted Maya Arguirova, head of the burn treatment center where they were transported.
The last serious bus accident in Bulgaria dates back to August 2018: 17 passengers died as the vehicle drove through torrential rain, with Bulgarian tourists on board returning from visiting a monastery in a mountainous region north of Sofia.
Bulgaria, a country of 6.9 million inhabitants, recorded some 628 road deaths in 2019 and 463 in 2020, a figure lower than normal due to health restrictions which limited travel.
This is one of the highest balance sheets in the European Union due to the poor condition of the roads, the dilapidated vehicle fleet and frequent speeding.