Crash scene ... coffins and wreckage are visible
AT least 39 people — including children — were killed when a bus returning from a pilgrimage plummeted 100ft down a ravine in southern Italy.
The coach smashed into up to ten cars before it crashed through a barrier and left the road, outside Avellino near Naples, around 9.30pm local time last night.
It then ploughed through the guardrail before plunging off a flyover. Around ten other passengers were injured.
Local reports say may the bus have had problems with its brakes.
Smash ... coach careered through cars on flyover
Disaster ... bus lies on its side after plunging off highway
Police said the driver is among the dead.
The difficult rescue effort at the foot of the sheer cliff was hampered by the difficult terrain, and involved police and firefighters from Naples, according to Italian media.
Dead ... coach smashed into several cars that were slowed by heavy traffic
Grief ... relatives at a makeshift mortuary in Monteforte Irpino
Around 50 passengers were thought to have been travelling on the bus, but a Foreign Office spokesperson said there is no indication of any British Nationals involved in the incident.
The passengers, many of whom were children, were travelling back to Naples from a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Padre Pio, the second-most visited Catholic shrine in the world.
Rescue ... workers try to free passengers
Flashing signs near Avellino, outside Naples, had warned of slowed traffic along the stretch of the A116 autostrada, a major highway crossing southern Italy, before the crash occurred.
Hours after the crash, local firefighters said they had pulled 36 bodies and 11 injured people from the mangled wreckage of the bus, which came to rest on its side in a clearance in the heavily wooded area at the bottom of the road.
Three of the injured died later in hospital.
Grieving friends and relatives gathered today at a maksehift morgue at a school in nearby Monteforte Irpino.
DOZENS were killed when a bus returning from a pilgrimage plummeted 100ft down a ravine in Italy
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who was meeting his Greek counterpart in Athens, said today: “It is a very sad day for Italy, what happened last night.
"There are no words for it. It is a huge tragedy.”
Terror .. cause of accident is not clear
Italian news reports said the bus could hold around 50 passengers and that it was almost filled on the ride back after an excursion to the popular Catholic memorial, around 160 miles south of Rome.
The tragedy happened just four days after the horror train crash in Spain where 79 people died on the way to a religious festival in Santiago de Compostela.
Plunged ... tour bus was filled with Italians returning home after an excursion
No comments:
Post a Comment