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Updated at 8.30am
RESCUE SERVICES IN southern Italy say at least 38 people were killed after a coach carrying pilgrims, including some children, plunged off a motorway flyover.
Another 11 people were injured, they added, in what is already one of the worst coach accidents in Europe in recent years.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage after Sunday evening’s crash near the town of Avellino in the Campania region.
They found the bodies of another three people underneath the coach. They had been thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres down a slope.
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency, before the toll was revised upwards.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the coach, which lay on its side in an inaccessible area at the bottom of the slope.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
The accident happened on a flyover on the A16 highway between Naples and Bari, near Avellino in the Monteforte Irpino district about 50 kilometres east of Naples.
The coach passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs told TheJournal.ie there were no indications of any Irish citizens injured or killed in the crash.
The coach had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on the busy dual carriageway. Witnesses said it looked as if the coach might have had brake problems.
It hit several cars before plunging off the flyover and there were reports that some of those in the seven or eight cars caught up in the chaos had also been injured.
Italian media reports said the place where the accident happened was at a particularly dangerous downward slope on the road that is already an accident black spot.
It was not yet exactly clear how many were on the coach, but local media reported that about 50 people were on board, many of them children.
The emergency services had rushed three badly injured children, four women and two men to hospitals in Avellino and nearby Naples, media reports said.
(Image: Gregorio Borgia/AP/Press Association Images)
Police would not put a definitive number on those killed in the accident.
“Our priority now is to free the wounded,” a spokesman told AFP.
“The situation is critical,” head fireman Pellegrino Iandolo told SKY TG24 television. “Our men are working to save as many lives as possible.”
Officials at the site said the driver of the coach was among the victims.
The Naples-Bari highway had been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed killing 28 people, including 22 children.
(Youtube: AFP)
- additional reporting by AFP
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In the last two weeks there has been 3 trains derailed in Canada France and Spain 2 bus accidents in russia and now Italy too many tragedies in a short timespan
A plane crash few weeks ago, train crash last week, now bus crash yesterday…something seriously wrong somewhere!! You’d never see these tragedies years ago.. rip to everyone thats passed away and my sympathies to all families…lets spare a thought for the rescuers, I’m sure its not easy for them either.
You would have seen them happening years ago… and probably more frequently. Its because they happen so rarely now that it becomes big news. To have the train and bus crash in the one week and both in developed European countries is however extremely rare. RIP to the dead.
“The coach had been travelling at high speed” just quoting what is wrote in the article. Anyone who was been on these coaches in Italy can agree there a points when you seriously fear for your life.
Chloe this bus may have been going too fast for this stretch of road but all these buses are limited to about 100kmh so its not break neck speed. The problem is when these buses hit something or roll over the passengers are ejected from the bus & in turn crushed by it. If the bus had been stopped at the top of the bank & rolled down the bank you will still have casualties. Also motorways in Italy are very narrow so one small error & its off into the scenery.
People on pilgrimages having a tough time of it lately.
Another very sad story.
god is great
Not that great… Evidently!
Such a massive tragic reminder life is really fragile.
Wow , lots of red thumbs . So the families shouldn’t take comfort in the fact that their loved ones are in heaven at the side of the Lord .
you’re a horrible excuse for a human being.
All part of his grand plan I suppose , as believers their families can take some comfort from that .
Nows not a good time to trying to be sarcastic..
Nows not a good time to trying to be sarcastic..
These drivers are working to tight deadlines, like the train crash in Spain the driver was behind schedule and was under pressure to make up time or else the passengers would have to be compensated.
This again shows the enormous responsibility our own drivers of these vehicles have and the numerous tight deadlines that they have to meet.
RIP to the dead.
Sorry to inform you Journal.ie but the last major coach crash in Europe took place in Montenegro just a month ago when 18 people lost their lives.
Absolutely awful, horrific. RIP
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