Seven people died, including five Argentines, and 20 were injured Tuesday morning when a bus carrying several foreigners on a route to Brazil fell into a ravine, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) reported. Among the victims was Franco Tomas Sancheza young professor and political activist from Magdalena who was a student at the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the UNLP.
The accident occurred around 1:50 p.m. when a company bus “To Catarinense” that came out of Florianopolis (St. Catarina) on Monday at 6:00 p.m. bound for Foz de Iguazú (Paraná) lost control and plunged into a ravine this morning on the BR277 route, in the municipality of Fernandes Pinheiro, for reasons that are still under investigation.
In the midst of the pain, colleagues, friends and relatives expressed their sorrow for the departure of Franco, who had been elected in the last inmates for president of the Radical Youth of Magdalena. For their part, from the School of Secondary Agrarian Education No. 1 in the town of Lucio Mansilla expressed their “deep pain and sadness at the death of Professor Franco Sánchez. Our school community accompanies family and friends in this difficult and painful moment.
In this way, in addition to the young UNLP student, the other six fatalities of the tragedy in Brazil are: Carina Martínez, 42, and her little David, 3, from Puerto Iguazú; Giuliana Tessari, 24, and her partner, Fernando Benítez, both from Wanda; and the Brazilians Genivaldo Fernandes de Lima, 49, residing in Cascavel, and Teicer Ahmad Tarbine, 31, a merchant from Foz de Iguazú.
The bus had 54 passengers on board, including at least 14 Argentines and a large number of Paraguayan, French and German tourists. The bus had left the city of Florianópolis, in the state of Santa Catarina, bound for Foz de Iguazú, Paraná.
In total, seven people died in the accident. The rest of the passengers who were injured, approximately 20, were transferred to health centers located in the central region of Paraná.
Until now, the causes of the accident of the bus, which belongs to the company Viação Catarinense, are under investigation. From what was known so far, there were no other vehicles involved and the driver, who survived unharmed, was flagged down by a passenger.
This is Alexandro de Oliveira Gamaro, who managed to save himself by grabbing onto a seat and recounted that the driver had confessed to him that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. “I was outraged and went up to the driver and said ‘man how did you throw me off a cliff on a straightaway’ and the driver looked me in the face and said ‘man I fell asleep’. I had no reaction. He also looked at me and didn’t react. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but I didn’t react.De Oliveria Gamaro said.
