At least 45 passengers perish in fiery bus crash in Bulgaria
Interior minister says people on board were ‘turned to charcoal’
SOFIA, Bulgaria — A bus carrying tourists back to North Macedonia crashed and caught fire in western Bulgaria early Tuesday, killing at least 45 people, including a dozen children, authorities said. DNA tests were being carried out to identify the victims.
The bus apparently ripped through a guardrail on a highway, though authorities said the cause was still under investigation. Photos taken shortly after the crash showed the vehicle engulfed in flames as plumes of thick, black smoke rose. Daylight revealed a burned-out shell, with all of the windows blown out, sitting in the median. A portion of the guardrail was lying in the road.
Seven survivors were hospitalized after the crash, which took place as a group of buses was returning from a trip to Turkey.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov told reporters at the crash site that he had “never in my life seen something more horrifying” and that the identification process would take time.
“The people who were on the bus are turned to charcoal,” Rashkov said. “There were four buses that traveled together and it is possible that passengers changed buses during the stops.”
Borislav Sarafov, chief of Bulgaria’s national investigation service, confirmed that 52 people were on the crashed bus.
Among the survivors were five North Macedonia citizens, one Serb and a
Belgian, according to North Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry. Albanian Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka said almost all of the dead were ethnic Albanians.
Blagoj Bocvarski, North Macedonia’s transport minister, told reporters in the capital Skopje late Tuesday that officials have started a procedure to revoke the transportation license of the travel company that owns the bus. He said the company has four buses licensed to carry passengers internationally, but the bus involved in the accident had “no record … that it possessed the license.”
News of the crash hit hard in the small Balkan country of 2 million people. The North Macedonia government observed a minute of silence Tuesday and declared three days of mourning. Flags will be lowered to half-staff and all public events will be canceled. The country’s prime minister traveled to Bulgaria, as did its chief prosecutor, who visited the crash site.
Azem Sadiki, mayor of Studenicani municipality near Skopje told reporters that 20 of the crash victims were local residents. He said the dead included a mother and her four children, as well as the woman’s sister and her two children.
“This is a huge loss for us all, and the whole country,” Sadiki said.
“The identification of the victims has started,” said Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani. “The autopsy and also the DNA identification.”
Osmani added: “Two things are important for us now, first the identification to finish as soon as possible and, second, to find the cause of the accident.”
The country’s prime minister, Zoran Zaev, who visited survivors in the hospital, told Bulgarian television channel bTV that one said he was awoken by an explosion.
In Skopje earlier, relatives gathered outside the travel company believed to have organized the trip, but the office appeared closed.
“Now we are waiting for bad news,” a distraught Bekim Aliti told reporters outside the building. He said his wife and his brother’s wife were on the trip.
Eldin Shiroki said his cousin was a tour guide for the company. “We still don’t have any accurate information — so we are waiting,” he said.