At least 45 people, including 12 children, were killed in a bus crash carrying mainly tourists from northern Macedonia on a highway in western Bulgaria on Tuesday (23), local authorities said.
Seven people who jumped off the burning bus were rushed to hospital in Sofia and were in stable condition, hospital staff said. Bulgaria’s interior ministry said 45 people had died.
The cause of the accident has yet to be confirmed, but the bus appeared to have hit a roadblock before or after it caught fire, Bulgarian authorities said.
Television footage showed the bus charred and destroyed by fire in the middle of the highway.
“We have a huge tragedy here,” Bulgaria’s interim prime minister Stefan Yanev told reporters.
Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov said: “The people are crowded inside and have been reduced to ashes.”
The head of the Bulgarian investigation service, Borislav Sarafov, said four buses from a North Macedonia travel agency entered Bulgaria late on Monday (22) from Turkey.
“Human driver error or technical malfunction are the two initial versions of the accident,” he said.
Northern Macedonia Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said the bus group was returning to Skopje from a weekend trip to Istanbul.
“This is a great tragedy,” Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told private television channel BTV.
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