2023-10-05 09:08:23
A security camera recorded the deadly bus accident in Venice, Italy, which left 21 dead last Tuesday.
This Wednesday, doctors and psychologists accompanied the relatives who arrived at the scene to identify their deceased loved ones or be with those injured in the accident.
Venice, in northeastern Italy, declared three days of mourning for the tragedy, which occurred when the vehicle fell from an overpass at a height of more than ten meters.
On board were 40 Italian and foreign tourists, returning from a visit to the historic center to the campsite where they were staying in Mestre, on the outskirts of the city.
Six survivors of the accident were admitted to the Dell’Angelo hospital in this town and some of their relatives visited them during the day, according to an AFP journalist.
Other injured people were taken to nearby hospitals in the cities of Padua and Treviso.
The precise circumstances of the accident are still unknown, although at the moment the hypothesis that the driver vanished is favored.
The tragedy revived the debate about the poor state of the country’s infrastructure, still traumatized by the collapse of the Genoa bridge in 2018, which caused 43 deaths.
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro described an “apocalyptic scene.” The city’s flags were flown at half-mast in commemoration of the victims and books of condolence were also opened.
Boubacar Touré, a 27-year-old worker from Gambia, was working on a construction site near the place where the accident occurred.
“I extracted three or four people, including a girl (…) The driver was already dead,” he told the press, after helping firefighters in their rescue efforts.
Another worker, Nigerian Godstime Erheneden, 30, said a woman desperately screamed in English “my daughter, my daughter!” and she implored him to rescue her from her.
“Then I saw a little girl who must have been two years old. I have a son who is one year and ten months old, I told myself it could have been him,” he said.
The remains of the vehicle, an electric bus from the Chinese brand Yutong, could be removed in the early morning.
Its batteries caught fire upon impact, but according to a local fire department official, there is nothing to confirm that this factor made rescue efforts difficult.
The authorities are trying to identify the victims who did not have their papers with them, crossing the data with the registry of the campsite where they were staying and conducting DNA tests.
The balance, still provisional, is 21 dead and 15 injured, five of them seriously, confirmed the prefect of Venice, Michele di Bari, at a press conference.
Among the dead are five Ukrainians, an Italian (the driver) and a German, he said.
“Among the injured, who are 15, there are four Ukrainians, a German, a Frenchman, a Croatian, two Spaniards,” he continued. “Four more injured people still have to be identified,” she said.
Ukrainian authorities reported four Ukrainians dead and four injured.
The main hypothesis at the moment is that the 40-year-old driver fainted, according to authorities.
According to images captured by a security camera, the hypothesis of excessive speed seems to be ruled out, since the bus was traveling normally before falling.
For Domenico Musicco, president of the Association of Victims of Road Accidents at Work, the state of the road should be questioned. “It is a tragedy foretold,” he told AFP.
“This lane is made for a rural road, while here we need new generation equipment that could have prevented the bus from falling.”
“The maintenance of Italian roads is mediocre. Too little is invested in road safety. It is estimated that 30% of accidents are due to that,” he recalled.
The most serious accident of this type that occurred in Italy occurred on July 28, 2013, when a bus with about 50 people on board fell from a viaduct in the Naples area. 40 people died in that tragedy.
#Camera #recorded #bus #accident #left #dead #Venice