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,” El.kz cites amp.cnn.com.
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.