A coach left the road on its way from Berlin to Zurich on Wednesday. Four people died in the accident.
Rescue workers work at the scene of an accident on the A9 near Schkeuditz, near the eastern German city of Leipzig.
Marvin Gaul / Reuters
On Thursday, police announced the identities of three of the four people who died. Accordingly, a 47-year-old Polish woman, a 20-year-old Indonesian woman living in Berlin and a 19-year-old from Bavaria died in the accident. Another woman who died at the scene of the accident has not yet been positively identified.
The authorities also reported that the 62-year-old bus driver was being investigated. The traffic police inspectorate is investigating suspicions of negligent homicide and bodily harm, it said.
After the accident, the investigation into the cause of the accident is now coming into focus. “First, numerous witness interviews must be carried out. Of course, this will take some time,” said a police spokeswoman.
The double-decker coach, which was driving for the Flixbus company, left the road on Wednesday morning, raced across the grass verge and tipped over on its side. He was on his way from Berlin to Zurich. The police initially spoke of five dead and more than twenty injured. She later revised the number of deaths from five to four. A person who was initially reported to the police as having died was in a life-threatening condition, the Leipzig Police Department announced on Wednesday evening.
According to initial findings, the double-decker bus left the road for an unknown reason on a straight route between the Wiedemar junction and the Schkeuditzer Kreuz, drove into the bushes and fell onto its side. A police spokesman emphasized that no other vehicle was likely involved in the accident. The A 9, an important north-south route between Berlin and Munich, was completely closed around the accident site until around 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening.
Cause of accident unclear
According to the Flixbus company, there were 53 passengers and two drivers on board the long-distance bus. A company spokesman said that we were working closely with the local authorities and the rescue workers on site and that every effort was being made to clarify the cause of the accident quickly and completely. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this accident and their families.”
After three hours, the crashed bus was uprighted using belts and several dead people were rescued from the interior. Mobile privacy screens shielded the action. According to the police, the driver of the coach is not among the dead. Details about the man’s health were not given. According to the bus company, the driver had been at the wheel since leaving Berlin at 8 a.m. and had adhered to all driving and rest times.
Hospitals in the area had prepared for a large-scale operation. The emergency room has been alerted and operating rooms and diagnostic rooms are being prepared and available, said a spokesman for the Diakonissen Hospital in Leipzig upon request. In addition, the control center was told what capacity there was to admit patients. Eleven injured people were treated at Leipzig University Hospital, including one seriously injured, a spokesman said in the afternoon. He is being treated in the intensive care unit.
Armin Schuster, the Interior Minister of Saxony (CDU), took an overview of the accident site and expressed his condolences to the relatives of the victims. He also thanked all the helpers on site for their professional efforts. He saw in the firefighters’ faces “how difficult these scenes were.”
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) described the news of the crashed bus on Platform X as “difficult to bear”. Saxony’s Transport Minister Martin Dulig was also dismayed. “My thoughts are with the relatives of the victims and injured,” said the SPD politician.
Emergency vehicles and rescue helicopters are at the scene of the accident.
Jan Woitas / dpa
Switzerland also noted with regret the serious bus accident in Germany, as the Foreign Ministry wrote on Platform X. The Swiss representation in Berlin is in contact with the responsible authorities and clarifications are underway. The Saxony police have set up a hotline for relatives.
#Leipzig | It is with regret that we have learned of the serious bus accident in Germany ????????.
The ???????? representative in Berlin is in contact with the responsible local authorities. Corresponding clarifications are underway.
— EDA – DFAE (@EDA_DFAE) March 27, 2024
Buses are comparatively safe means of transport
There have been a number of serious coach accidents in recent years. Nevertheless, buses are among the comparatively safe means of transport. According to accident statistics, they are comparatively rarely involved in traffic accidents with personal injuries.
“However, cases in which accidents occur are often dramatic because the number of people affected can be high,” said an ADAC spokesman. According to the information, a total of eight people died in bus accidents inside and outside towns in 2022 – a number that is not unusual in long-term comparison.
A serious bus accident occurred on the A 9 near Bad Dürrenberg in Saxony-Anhalt in 2019. A woman died. In December 2023, a coach also had an accident on the A 9 near Leipzig, leaving several people injured.
The ADAC pointed out that seat belts in coaches have been mandatory since 1999. “It is not possible to understand whether and how individual companies check whether passengers are wearing seatbelts,” said the spokesman. Bus travelers are generally advised to fasten their seatbelts. In addition, according to ADAC, coaches must be equipped with a so-called lane departure warning system since 2022. It was initially not known whether the bus that crashed had one. Such a system warns the driver, but does not prevent the driver from actually leaving the road if they do not countersteer.