Italian authorities are investigating the case on Wednesday the crash of the electric bus carrying foreign tourists on the outskirts of Venice, accident in which 21 people lost their lives, including four Romanians, and injured 15 others, Reuters reports. According to Ansa, two main hypotheses are being examined by the judiciary regarding the causes of the tragedy: a risky maneuver, involving another bus and an old railing, or an illness of the car driver who could not control the vehicle.
A bus fell from a bridge in Italy, killing 21 people, including 4 RomaniansPhoto: IPA / BACKGRID / Backgrid UK / Profimedia
The electric bus broke the railing and plunged from a railway bridge in the Mestre district on Tuesday, after falling more than 10 meters into the void.
All 21 victims of the tragedy have been identified, the prefect of Venice Michele Di Bari, the local representative of the Ministry of the Interior, said on Wednesday evening.
Among them are nine Ukrainian citizens, four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, one Croatian, one South African and the Italian driver, Di Bari told Italian public broadcaster Rai News.
The bus was taking tourists back to a campsite near Marghera after a day in Venice.
The accident happened shortly before 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT) on a straight and normally very busy road that connects Mestre to the historic center of Venice and passes a railway.
“We assume that the driver would have been hurt,” Veneto regional president Luca Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio.
Eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage could provide further clues, he said.
However, “the footage (of the accident) that has also appeared in the national media suggests that a 360-degree investigation is required,” Di Bari said, adding that authorities were working to recover the vehicle’s black box.
Among those injured in the accident were four Ukrainians, two Spaniards, two Austrians, a German, a Croatian and a French person, Di Bari said on Wednesday.
On Wednesday evening, Ansa wrote that 13 of the 15 people hospitalized were identified: five Ukrainian citizens, four Germans, two Spaniards, one Croatian and one French. The last two injured, on whom investigations are still being carried out, would be a Ukrainian and a German citizen.
The bus was moving slowly before it fell off the bridge
People living nearby said they heard a loud bang and rushed to the scene to try to help.
“There was a woman speaking English and crying. As I was taking her out, she said ‘take my daughter, take her,'” Nigerian native Godstime Erheneden told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
“She was a small child, I think she was two years old. She was unconscious and I think she was dead. I’m very upset, she’s the same age as my son,” he added.
License plate checks indicated the bus was an electric vehicle made by a Chinese manufacturer. The remains of the bus were still being monitored because of fire risks from its batteries, firefighters said Wednesday.
The head of the company that operated the bus, Massimo Fiorese, told Corriere della Sera that he had seen video footage of the moments before the accident.
It showed the single-decker bus slowing down and appearing “almost stationary” when it crashed through the railing and fell, he said.
“I think the driver was taken, because I can’t explain it otherwise,” Fiorese said, adding that the driver had started his shift less than two hours before the accident.
Images from the scene of the accident showed that the crossing was fitted with an old, relatively thin metal railing, rather than newer, stronger concrete versions.
“There are no signs of braking, no contact with other vehicles,” said the head of the Ventian Prosecutor’s Office, according to ANSA.
Testimonies rule out that the crashed bus was traveling fast.
The average age of the victims is very low. On the list of the deceased there is a child of only one and a half years – the doctors could not determine his exact age – and a girl of 11-12 years. Other shattered lives were two young women aged 28 and one aged 30.
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