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A bus of tourists in Venice dropped from an elevated road, killing 21 in fiery crash

The Associated Press

Emergency services personnel work at the scene of a passenger bus crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15 others in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday night. Slow Press/LiveMedia/LaPresse via AP hide caption

Emergency services personnel work at the scene of a passenger bus crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15 others in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday night.

VENICE — A bus carrying dozens of people plummeted 15 meters (50 feet) from an elevated road in Venice, causing a fiery crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15, mostly foreign tourists returning to a nearby campsite.

Those who died in the Tuesday night crash included at least five Ukrainians, one German citizen and the man who was driving the bus, according to the Venice prefecture.

At least two of the dead were children, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said, adding that many of the people involved in the accident were "young." Nine people were in critical condition, hospital officials said later on Wednesday morning, including a 3-year-old girl from Ukraine.

Firefighters worked until dawn Wednesday to clear the wreckage. Later in the morning, traffic was slowly passing the spot where the bus burst through a guardrail and a rusted fence.

Bus carrying high school students to band camp crashes, killing 2 adults

The accident scene drew the attention of passersby. A couple of locals said that the overpass was more than 60 years old and that nothing similar had ever happened there, while a man wearing a biker jacket stopped his motorcycle to tie to a post a bouquet of plastic flowers.

The bus was carrying foreign tourists from Venice's Piazzale Roma to the Hu campground on Tuesday evening when it fell from an elevated street next to railway tracks in the borough of Mestre, catching fire. Tourists frequently stay in boroughs across the lagoon from the canals of Venice's famous historic center to find cheaper accommodations.

The injured included French, Spanish, Austrian and Croatian nationals, local officials said. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that two people from Spain were injured in the accident, and both were in hospital and in good condition.

The French Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that there was a French national among the injured. Hospital psychologists were working to help the victims deal with the trauma.

The Italian driver, Alberto Rizzotto, was killed in the crash. Venice city councilor Renato Boraso said he was an experienced driver, and local prosecutors are investigating if he felt ill.

Veneto region's governor Luca Zaia said on Wednesday that the dynamic of the accident remained hard to decipher. "Everything makes one think of an illness,″ Zaia said. "The driver was an expert, a good person, very well referenced."

Rescuers noted that the fact that the bus was electric contributed to the massive fire and made rescue operations more difficult.

A witness describes the scene immediately after the crash

Godstime Erheneden was in his apartment near the site when he heard a crash. He rushed outside and was among the first to enter the bus.

"When we went in, we saw the driver right away. He was dead. I carried a woman out on my shoulders, then a man," Erheneden told the local newspaper il Gazzettino.

"The woman was screaming, 'my daughter, my daughter,' and I went back in. I saw this girl who must have been 2 years old. I have a son who is a year and 10 months old, and they are the same size. I felt like I was holding my son in my arms. It was terrible. I don't know if she survived. I thought she was alive but when the rescuers arrived, they took her away immediately," Erheneden said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the scene was "apocalyptic" and declared a state of mourning.

In 2017, 16 people on a bus carrying Hungarian students died in an accident near the northern city of Verona. And in 2013, 40 people were killed in one of Italy's worst vehicle accidents when a bus plunged off a viaduct close to the southern city of Avellino.

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"Apocalyptic" bus crash near Venice kills at least 21, Italian authorities say

Updated on: October 3, 2023 / 8:01 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A bus crashed near the Italian city of Venice after falling from an elevated street, killing at least 21 people and injuring 18 others on Tuesday, authorities said.

The bus was carrying foreign tourists, including Ukrainians, Renato Boraso, a Venice city official, said. Boraso said the bus was bringing tourists to a camping site. Italian media reported that German and French tourists were also aboard the bus.

Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said that two children died in the crash in the Mestre suburb of Venice. 

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the scene of the crash was "apocalyptic" and that he had already declared the "city's mourning" for the "numerous victims" who were on the bus.

According to local media, the bus fell a few meters before crashing close to Mestre's railway tracks, where it caught fire. Emergency crews were on the scene. The state police  said  they were on-site to aid victims and "to investigate."

"The people in the bus found themselves surrounded by flames," said Mauro Luongo, commander of the Venice firefighters team. "The scene we found was terrible. It took about one hour to extract some of the bodies."

Four of the injured were in serious condition following the accident in the Mestre borough, Boraso said.

Un’immane tragedia ha colpito questa sera la nostra comunità. Ho disposto da subito il lutto cittadino, in memoria delle numerose vittime che erano nell’autobus caduto. Una scena apocalittica, non ci sono parole. pic.twitter.com/APnsQoPMkL — Luigi Brugnaro (@LuigiBrugnaro) October 3, 2023

The City of Venice on social media confirmed that all the injured had been transported to a nearby hospital and that railway lines had been reactivated. 

The Veneto region governor, Luca Zaia, told RAI state television that the cause of the accident was still unclear.

"This is an important tragedy, but it's difficult to understand how it happened," he said. "The bus was new and electric, and that street wasn't particularly problematic."

Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her "deepest sorrow" after the crash. "Our thoughts go out to the victims and their family and friends," she wrote on social media.

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Bus crash near venice kills 21 people.

At least 21 people were killed, including two children, when a passenger bus plunged from a bridge in Mestre, Italy, near Venice on Tuesday, in what has been described as an “apocalyptic scene.”

The bus was traveling from Venice to nearby Marghera and was “full of people returning home from work,” Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro told state media RAI.

“It completely went off the road, it flew off the bridge. It was a bus; it was a highway. We are in mourning,” he added. Brugnaro described the scene as “apocalyptic” in a post on Facebook.

Francesco Martino, chief of staff of the prefecture of Venice, told CNN that 18 people were also injured in the crash and that authorities were still trying to determine what caused it.

The accident occurred on the overpass of a road that leads from Mestre to Marghera and the A4 motorway, Italian media skytg24 reported.

For reasons that have yet to be determined, the bus broke through a wall of the overpass, falling between a warehouse and the tracks of the Mestre station below, according to skytg24.

“Following the impact, the vehicle caught fire,” the fire brigade wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Morris Ceron, general director of the municipality of Venice, told the Italian public broadcaster RAI that the vehicle was headed towards a campsite.

“The identification of the bodies is underway,” Ceron told RAI.

Among the injured are Ukrainian, French, Croatian and German nationals, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari told RAI.

‘Tragedy of enormous proportions’

As authorities try and determine the cause of the deadly accident, RAI reported that the 40-year-old bus driver, identified as Alberto Rizzotto, was among the dead. The traffic counselor, Renato Boraso, told RAI that Rizzotto was an expert and had up to 7 years experience as a bus driver.

Luca Zaia, president of Italy’s Veneto region, called the bus crash in northern Italy, “a tragedy of enormous proportions.”

He said the accident involved some minors and “the victims and injured are of various nationalities, not just Italians.”

More than 20 ambulances “were used and the Treviso air ambulance was also called to the scene,” he said, adding that the injured were taken to hospitals in “Mestre, Mirano, Padua and Treviso.”

Images from the scene showed rescue workers by an overturned and crumpled bus below a bridge.

Rescue operations began at 7:45 p.m. local time (1:45 p.m. ET) and ended around 9:30 p.m local, according to officials.

The country’s president and prime minister expressed their condolences in the aftermath of the accident as did other world leaders.

“I express my personal and the Government’s deepest condolences for the serious accident that occurred in Mestre. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their family and friends,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on X.

French President Emmanuel Macron said “thoughts this evening are with the Italian people, with the families and loved ones of the victims of the terrible tragedy in Venice” in a post on X.

“I am deeply saddened by the terrible accident of a bus in Mestre this evening. I offer my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims at this sad time. I’m close to you,” President of the European Council, Charles Michel, wrote on X.

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21 dead, including 2 babies, after bus falls off overpass near Venice, Italy

Prosecutors are investigating whether the driver suddenly became ill.

A bus crash on Tuesday in Mestre, Italy, a suburb near Venice, left 21 dead, including two babies, and another 15 riders injured, according to officials.

Prosecutors are investigating whether the 40-year-old driver suddenly became ill before the coach plunged off an overpass and onto a highway, officials said Wednesday. Investigators are also looking into whether the bus was certified.

The bus was carrying passengers to a campsite in Marghera when the wreck occurred, police said on X , the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Many of the injured, who were rescued in an evacuation operation, were listed as code red, indicating they were in critical condition. Authorities initially said 18 people were injured, but on Wednesday the number was revised to 15.

The injured passengers were taken to five hospitals in Veneto, officials said.

Venice City Councillor Renato Boraso told reporters that some of the passengers aboard the electric bus suffered burns.

Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia said most of the passengers on the bus were foreign tourists, but it remained unclear Wednesday what countries they were from. There were no immediate reports of Americans being on the bus.

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Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared a state of mourning through Friday for the "tragic accident that occurred in Mestre," ordering flags to be lowered to half-mast across the city "in memory of the numerous victims who were on the fallen bus," he said in a statement posted on X .

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered her "condolences to the families of the victims and those injured in the serious accident in Mestre."

Italian President Sergio Mattarella also called the mayor of Venice "to express his condolences for the very serious tragedy of Mestre," the official account of the Italian president posted on X.

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The accident impacted the local railway network, shutting it down for a time, though services were later restored, officials said. Traffic in the area was impacted, according to a post from the City of Venice .

ABC News' Will Gretsky and Jolie Lash contributed to this story.

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Venice bus crash: Victims still unidentified almost 24 hours on

Italian authorities are still trying to identify all of the 21 victims of Tuesday's deadly bus crash in Venice.

The electric bus crashed through a bridge barrier, and plunged almost 15m (50ft) in the mainland borough of Mestre, before bursting into flames.

DNA samples are being used to confirm the identities of those who were not carrying personal documents, prosecutor Bruno Cherchi said.

Three children including a baby were among the dead, according to officials.

The bus was carrying 39 tourists from the centre of Venice to a campsite. On Wednesday evening, relatives began arriving in Italy from other countries to identify the dead.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said a huge tragedy had taken place. "An apocalyptic scene, there are no words," he said on social media.

CCTV footage showed the vehicle driving past another bus before toppling off the carriageway.

One rescuer spoke of a "tragedy of young people, if not very young people, except for a few adults".

Heroes pulled Venice crash survivors from burning wreck

Nine Ukrainians, three Germans, four Romanians, two Portuguese, a South African national and the Italian driver were among those killed, a spokesperson for Venice's mayor said.

Fifteen people are known to have been injured, five of them seriously - including Ukrainians, Austrians, Spaniards and other foreign tourists, according to officials.

Among the injured were two 16-year-olds and two younger children, the local governor said.

Two German brothers, aged seven and 13, were being treated for broken bones in hospital in nearby Treviso. Their parents were killed in the accident and the boys were being given counselling.

A young Croatian woman who was on her honeymoon also died, Ansa news agency reported. Her husband of about three weeks was sent to hospital.

Some survivors in the Angelo di Mestre hospital were asking for their loved ones, said the head of medicine, Chiara Berti. "There were entire families, grandparents, grandchildren, spouses."

Venice prosecutor Bruno Cherchi said only three or four survivors had so far been able to talk to investigators by Wednesday afternoon.

The city's authorities have declared three days of mourning after the tragedy.

The bus crashed at around 19:45 (17:45 GMT) on Tuesday. It had apparently been rented by a local company to pick up tourists from the historic centre of Venice and take them to a campsite in the nearby Marghera district, on the mainland.

Witnesses saw the bus scraping along the guard-rail on the flyover for 50m, before tumbling to the ground, the prosecutor added.

The bus company emphasised that the 13-tonne vehicle was electric, discounting earlier reports that it also ran on methane gas. Fire brigade commander Mauro Longo told Il Gazzettino website that the bus's batteries caught fire and made the task of clearing the vehicle a complex operation.

Witnesses said they could hear people screaming, but the flames were too intense to get to them.

A 27-year-old Gambian worker and his housemate were among the first people to reach the scene. He told how he had pulled three or four people from the bus, including a young girl.

Boubacar Touré and Odion Eboigbe, who is Nigerian, ran to the scene after hearing a sudden, thundering crash beside their apartment.

"We ran down to the spot where the bus was on fire and I heard a woman screaming, 'My baby, my baby,'" Boubacar told the BBC.

"I managed to pull her through the window and then pulled out her son, who was badly burnt but still alive."

Boubacar said the fire was so intense that fire extinguishers had little impact on the flames.

What is unclear is why the bus left the flyover on a downhill stretch of the road and careered through a guard rail and metal barrier. Police are looking at video from security cameras near the crash site.

The 40-year-old driver, Alberto Rizzotto, had worked for the bus company for seven years and there was no indication on the road that he had tried to brake before the crash.

In his last Facebook post, he said he was running a "shuttle to Venice".

The head of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, said "everything points" to the driver being taken ill in the moments before losing control of the bus. However, he added that it was prudent not to speculate on the causes of the accident.

Massimo Fiorese, from La Linea bus company, said the vehicle was less than a year old and the driver highly experienced.

"There's a video of the bus just before it falls," he told the Ansa news agency. "The vehicle arrives, slows down and brakes. It's almost at a standstill when it crashes through the guard-rail. I think the driver must have fallen ill, because otherwise I can't explain it."

Firefighters eventually removed the wrecked bus from the scene early on Wednesday.

A reception point staffed by psychologists and psychiatrists has been set up at a nearby hospital to provide support for the victims' families.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the country's thoughts were with the victims and their family and friends.

Venice tourist bus plunge leaves 21 dead

At least 21 dead after tour bus plunges off overpass near Venice, Italian officials say

A city official said the bus was bringing tourists to a camping site, by giada zampano | associated press • published october 3, 2023.

A bus carrying foreign tourists including Ukrainians crashed near the Italian city of Venice when it fell from an elevated street Tuesday, killing at least 21 people and injuring 18 others, authorities said.

Four of the injured were in serious condition following the accident in the Mestre borough, on the mainland opposite the historic old city of Venice, said Renato Boraso, a Venice city official. Two of the dead were children, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said.

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Boraso confirmed that some of the victims are Ukrainians, and said the bus was bringing tourists to a camping site.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the scene of the crash was “apocalyptic” and that he had already declared the “city's mourning" for the “numerous victims” who were on the bus.

According to local media, the bus fell a few meters before crashing close to Mestre's railway tracks, where it caught fire. Emergency crews were on the scene.

Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her “deepest sorrow” after the crash.

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More than 20 killed after Italian tourist bus crashes off Venice overpass

Bus carrying some 40 passengers veered off elevated overpass, plunged about 15 metres and caught fire, officials report.

More than 20 people have been killed and 18 injured after a bus carrying foreign tourists crashed off an elevated overpass, plunged some 15 metres (50 feet) and caught fire near Venice in northern Italy, officials said.

The bus veered off the road on Tuesday evening at approximately 7:45pm local time (17:45 GMT), crashed through a barrier, plummeted onto electricity lines and caught fire, according to reports.

What caused the horrific accident was unclear.

Venice City Councillor Renato Boraso said the bus had been carrying 40 passengers, 21 of whom had died and 18 who were injured.

Boraso warned that the death toll could rise as several of those hurt in the crash were in a critical condition in hospital.

“It’s an appalling tragedy, the city is in mourning,” Boraso told Sky Italia television.

“An apocalyptic scene, there are no words,” Venice’s Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a post on social media.

Official mourning has been declared in Venice in memory of the victims, the mayor said.

Un’immane tragedia ha colpito questa sera la nostra comunità. Ho disposto da subito il lutto cittadino, in memoria delle numerose vittime che erano nell’autobus caduto. Una scena apocalittica, non ci sono parole. pic.twitter.com/APnsQoPMkL — Luigi Brugnaro (@LuigiBrugnaro) October 3, 2023

[Unofficial translation: A huge tragedy struck our community this evening. I immediately ordered the city to mourn, in memory of the numerous victims who were on the fallen bus. An apocalyptic scene, there are no words. ]

Five of the victims were Ukrainians and one was German, said Venice’s prefect Michele Di Bari, the local representative of the interior ministry. The bus was also carrying passengers from France and Croatia, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

“The bus is totally crushed. The firefighters had difficulty getting a lot of the bodies out,” Di Bari told Sky Italia television. He said two children were among the victims.

Late on Tuesday evening, rescuers were still struggling to remove the wreckage of the bus to make sure no more passengers were trapped inside.

“The scene the firemen had to deal with was really difficult, really bad,” said Al Jazeera’s Alexandra Byers.

The Veneto region governor, Luca Zaia, told RAI state television that the cause of the accident was still unclear.

“This is an important tragedy, but it’s difficult to understand how it happened,” Zaia said. “The bus was new and electric, and that street wasn’t particularly problematic.”

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences, saying in a statement that her government’s thoughts were with “the victims, their families and their friends”.

Italy has been the scene of a number of deadly bus crashes in recent years.

In 2017, 16 people on board a bus carrying Hungarian students died in an accident near the northern city of Verona, while 40 people died in 2013 when a bus plunged off a viaduct in southern Italy.

Italy launches investigation after a bus with tourists plunges from a Venice overpass, killing 21

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Residents of the Italian city of Venice stopped in dismay Wednesday to pay respects to the 21 foreign tourists who were killed when an all-electric shuttle bus crashed through an overpass guardrail and fence, plunging more than 30 feet to the ground.

It’s a road that Venetians had traveled many times and considered safe, but they now stopped to inspect the aging guardrail and rusted fence.

The bus, which was just a year old, crashed to the ground and landed upside down on Tuesday night. The 40-year-old driver was among those killed, and 15 people were injured.

The driver, who had an untarnished record, had just started his shift shuttling tourists from Piazzale Roma, at the edge of Venice’s famed canals, to a four-star campground on the mainland offering bargain accommodation.

A video shows the city-owned bus disappear from the frame, as another larger bus traveling behind it continues along the overpass. Prosecutors said the shuttle bus scraped the guardrail for at least more than 150 feet before its fiery crash to a surface road opposite the Venetian borough of Mestre’s train station.

The guardrail was bent to the pavement, the fence was ripped open and the front of the bus was completely crushed.

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“Inexplicable,’’ said Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, who added that he had driven on the overpass hundreds of times. Regional Gov. Luca Zaia said the circumstances suggested the driver may have suddenly become ill.

Investigators hope that video from the scene will reveal the reason for the crash.

Five Ukrainians and one German were among those killed. The Italian driver was identified as Alberto Rizzotto. Two of the dead were children. The rest of those who perished have yet to be identified.

The injured included at least four Ukrainians, part of a larger group that included a 3-year-old girl who suffered serious burns, as well as visitors from Spain, Austria, France, Croatia and Germany. Nine were being treated in intensive care for trauma, including burns and fractures. Survivors included a young Austrian brother and sister.

“They are still in what we call the shock phase, with confused memories. They are still in that state of agitation and confusion typical of the traumatic event,’’ said Rita Lorio, a psychologist at Mestre’s main hospital, one of five treating the injured. ”They are not yet in that phase of awareness of what happened.”

The tourists are all believed to have stayed at the Hu Venezia Camping in Town, just a 15-minute drive from the shuttle bus’s pickup point at Piazzale Roma, at the edge of Venice’s famed canals linked to the mainland by a bridge.

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The crash has shocked Venetians, two-thirds of whom live on the mainland. Many stopped on Wednesday morning to pay their respects, staring at the gaping guardrail and fence. One man stopped on his motorcycle to tie plastic flowers to a post.

Family members of the dead and survivors were trickling in to Venice from around Europe on Wednesday. The Veneto region declared three days of mourning, and flags were flown at half-staff at government buildings.

Some said the fact that the bus was electric contributed to the massive fire and made rescue operations more difficult.

“I won’t forget what I saw for the rest of my life,” Brugnaro, the mayor, told the Associated Press from his office in Mestre. “Seeing all those people crammed inside a bus, down there, is something you can’t describe.”

Venice is in the process of replacing its buses with electric vehicles. They have been introduced on the city’s Lido island several years ago, with a small percentage added to the fleet in Mestre last year.

Brugnaro said the crash didn’t give him reason to pause the city’s plan to upgrade city transportation vehicles to less-polluting electric buses, even if it needs to be determined what role the battery might have played in the ensuing blaze.

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The bus drove off the overpass, he said.

“It has nothing to do with the fact that it is electric,” the mayor said.

The bus was made by China-based Yutong Group Co., which describes itself as a large-scale industrial company specializing in buses. It wasn’t clear from photographs at the scene which of the company’s models was involved.

On its website, Yutong shows newer models with multiple electronic safety systems including a lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking, collision warning and collision mitigation control.

The website says the buses have buffer spaces for high-voltage electrical components at the front and rear. It also says the buses have enhanced anti-crash structures.

“Fully spatial and thermal isolation between battery cabin and passenger compartment poses no threat to passengers, even if the batteries catch fire,” the website says.

Gianni Amadeo, an 80-year-old retired musician, stopped in disbelief Wednesday at the site, which he passes regularly between his home and a garage he uses for storage.

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“It took a scary flight,” he said of the bus’ plunge.

Godstime Erheneden was in his apartment overlooking the busy road when he heard a crash and rushed outside. He was among the first to enter the bus.

“When we went in, we saw the driver right away. He was dead. I carried a woman out on my shoulders, then a man,” Erheneden told the local newspaper, Il Gazzettino.

“The woman was screaming, ‘My daughter, my daughter,’ and I went back in. I saw this girl who must have been 2 years old. I have a son who is a year and 10 months old, and they are the same size. I felt like I was holding my son in my arms. It was terrible. I don’t know if she survived. I thought she was alive but when the rescuers arrived, they took her away immediately,” Erheneden said.

Brugnaro said he had read what Erhenden and his roommate did. Both were identified as long-time residents of Italy who work for the Fincantieri shipbuilding company. The mayor said he planned to track them down once the emergency phase had passed.

“They threw themselves into the fire to rescue these people. They are real heroes of our time,’’ he said.

Ciarán Giles, Sylvie Corbet and Tom Krisher of the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Italian bus crashes off overpass near Venice, falling onto powerlines and killing tourists

Topic: Wildlife Traffic Accidents and Incidents

At least 20 people have died in northern Italy after a city bus carrying tourists to a campground crashed off an overpass near Venice and caught fire. 

Key points:

• Officials say multiple passengers are still unaccounted-for 
• Local news outlets say the death toll could climb higher 
• Italian PM Giorgia Meloni says her thoughts are with "victims, their families and their friends"

The bus veered off the road and fell close to railway lines in the district of Mestre, which is connected to Venice by a bridge. The cause of the accident was unclear.

Sky Italia television reported 18 bodies had been dragged from the wreckage after the vehicle fell 15 metres onto electricity lines and caught fire about 7:45pm local time.

"It's an apocalyptic scene. I am speechless," Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro posted on social media.

"There are at least 20 dead, but some people are still trapped in the wreckage," he later told Italian state television channel Rai News24.

Venice's prefecture, a branch of the interior ministry, was quoted by Italian news agency ANSA as saying that there were 21 people dead, 12 injured and four or five unaccounted-for.

With rescue operations ongoing, other news agencies said the death toll could climb higher.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences, saying in a statement that her government's thoughts were with "the victims, their families and their friends".

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Fiery bus crash on Venice flyover kills at least 21 people

Those who died in the Tuesday night crash included at least five Ukrainians, one German citizen and the man who was driving the bus, according to the Venice prefecture.

A bus carrying dozens of people plummeted 15 metres from an elevated road in Venice, causing a fiery crash that killed 21 people and injured 18 others, mostly foreign tourists.

Four of the injured were in serious condition following the accident in the Mestre borough, on the mainland opposite the historic old city of Venice, said Renato Boraso, a Venice city official. Two of the dead were children, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said.

Un’immane tragedia ha colpito questa sera la nostra comunità. Ho disposto da subito il lutto cittadino, in memoria... Posted by Luigi Brugnaro on  Tuesday, October 3, 2023

The bus was carrying foreign tourists from Venice’s Piazzale Roma to the Hu campground when it fell from an elevated street next to railway tracks catching fire. Tourists frequently stay in boroughs across the lagoon from the canals of Venice’s famous historic centre to find cheaper accommodations.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the scene of the crash was “apocalyptic” and that he had already declared the “city's mourning" for the “numerous victims” who were on the bus.

Premier Giorgia Meloni expressed her “deepest sorrow” after the crash.

Firefighters worked until dawn Wednesday to clear the wreckage. Later in the morning, traffic was slowly passing the spot where the bus burst through a guardrail and a rusted fence.

The accident drew the attention of passersby. A couple of locals said that the overpass was more than 60 years old and that nothing similar had ever happened there, while a man wearing a biker jacket stopped his motorcycle to tie to a post a bouquet of plastic flowers.

Rescuers noted that the fact that the bus was electric contributed to the massive fire and made rescue operations more difficult.

In 2017, 16 people on a bus carrying Hungarian students died in an accident near the northern city of Verona. In 2013, 40 people were killed in one of Italy’s worst vehicle accidents when a bus plunged off a viaduct close to the southern city of Avellino.

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21 People Dead After ‘Apocalyptic’ Tourist Bus Crash in Italy

The vehicle filled with tourists drove off a bridge and exploded after hitting the ground along the outskirts of Venice

Gabrielle Rockson is a staff writer-reporter for PEOPLE. She joined PEOPLE in 2023 and covers entertainment and human interest stories. She's interviewed David Beckham, Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet and many others. Her previous work can be found in OK! Magazine, MyLondon, GRM Daily, and more.

A bus filled with tourists drove off a bridge and burst into flames along the outskirts of Venice, Italy, killing 21 people and injuring at least 18 others on Tuesday, according to multiple outlets .

Reuters reports that the electric bus crashed through a guardrail before falling over 33 feet into the ground near train tracks in a scene described as "apocalyptic" by Mayor Luigi Brugnaro.

"A huge tragedy struck our community this evening," Brugnaro posted on X (formerly known as Twitter). "I immediately ordered the city to mourn, in memory of the numerous victims who were on the fallen bus."

He added, "There are no words."

Italian Firefighters/Vigili del Fuoco/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty

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Among those killed were the Italian bus driver and people carrying passports from Austria, Croatia, France, Spain and Ukraine, Venice's prefect, Michele Di Bari, told Reuters .  

Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images

Suem 118 Veneto emergency service unit coordinator, Paolo Rosi, told Italian publication ANSA that a baby, a 12-year-old child and an older minor were also killed in the crash.

According to the AP, the injured passengers, including four that were in serious condition, were taken to five different regional hospitals.

 Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images

"It is a time of mourning for everyone, a time to remain silent,” Di Bari said via Reuters. “Both the President of the Region [Luca Zaia] and the Mayor [Luigi Brugnaro] have asked the premier's office to declare three days of mourning, with flags at half-mast throughout the region.”

The cause of the crash is still being investigated but it’s believed that the 40-year-old driver may have been unwell before the tragedy. "We presume the driver may have fallen ill," Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio, per the news outlet. 

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Liverpool fan dies after road traffic accident in Italy ahead of game against AC Milan

The Associated Press

September 17, 2024, 4:29 PM

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MILAN, Italy (AP) — A Liverpool fan who traveled to Italy to watch the Champions League game against AC Milan has died following a road traffic accident, the Premier League club said Tuesday.

Philip Dooley, who was described as a lifelong Liverpool supporter, was involved in an accident near Bergamo airport in the early hours of the morning.

Representatives from both teams placed flowers on Dooley’s seat at San Siro before kickoff, while Liverpool coach Arne Slot and his players work black armbands as a mark of respect.

“The thoughts and prayers of everyone connected to the club are with Philip’s family, friends and fellow supporters at this extremely difficult time,” Liverpool said in a statement.

Liverpool said members of staff were working with local police and the consulate. The club said staff were also providing “support to other fans impacted by this devastating incident.”

Italian media reported that Dooley, who had landed on a flight from Manchester approximately an hour earlier, was attempting to cross a motorway between the airport and his hotel and had climbed a barrier to get on the road.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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