The driver of a bus that crashed near Venice, Italy, killing 21 people, may have experienced some type of medical emergency before falling off an overpass, plunging the vehicle more than 30 feet, officials said as nationalities were revealed. of those killed on Wednesday.
Authorities launched an investigation into the violent crash after learning that driver Alberto Rizzotto, 40, who was among the dead, was just a couple of hours into his shift when the tragedy occurred shortly before 8 p.m. in a straight and busy road. in the Mestre district.
Video of the accident shows that no other vehicles made contact with the bus carrying foreign tourists to a camp before it fell into an area near the train tracks and caught fire.
Prosecutors said the bus grazed the guardrail for more than 150 feet before crashing through it and off the overpass, landing face down on the ground.
The city-owned bus was only a year old and Rizotto was an employee of the bus company for seven years and had a perfect driving record, according to officials.
The bus left a straight, busy road and no other vehicles made contact with it before crashing. Vigili del Fuoco HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Officials believe the bus driver, who died in the accident, may have experienced a medical emergency. .ZUMAPRESS.com
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called the accident “inexplicable,” while other officials believe the cause could have been a medical problem.
“We assume that the driver may have fallen ill,” Veneto regional president Luca Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio.
Investigators hope to recover video from cameras on board the bus to reveal what happened inside before the deadly crash.
Authorities are also investigating whether the electric bus’s battery may have contributed to the fire that burned the wreckage. However, the cause of the accident, Brugnaro warned, “had nothing to do with the fact that it is electric.”
Among the 21 dead were the Italian driver, nine Ukrainians, four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, one Croatian and one South African.
The driver was the only Italian to die in the crash, authorities said Wednesday. Among the remaining dead were nine Ukrainians, four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, one Croatian and one South African.
Another 15 people were injured, most of them fractures and burns. Four Ukrainians, including a three-year-old girl who suffered serious burns, as well as travelers from Spain, Austria, France, Croatia and Germany were injured.
Nine victims remained in the intensive care unit on Wednesday.
The tourists had spent the day touring Venice’s famous canals and were heading back to Camping Hu Venezia in the city on a 15-minute bus ride when disaster struck.
Brugnaro previously called the accident scene “apocalyptic.”
“I won’t forget what I saw for the rest of my life,” he told The Associated Press from his office in Mestre. “Seeing all those people packed inside a bus, down there, is something that cannot be described.”
Some of the first to arrive at the scene were good Samaritans who lived near the crash site and heard a bang followed by screams.
Godstime Erheneden, 30, from Nigeria, and Boubacar Touré, 27, from Gambia, roommates and long-time Italian residents, were preparing dinner in an apartment overlooking the busy overpass when they saw the remains of the accident below.
Nine of the 15 injured remain in intensive care, where they are being treated for severe burns and bone fractures. AP
Erheneden ran onto the bus, walked past the driver who he said was already dead, and carried a woman and a man over his shoulders, he told the Venetian newspaper Il Gazzettino.
“The woman was screaming, ‘My daughter, my daughter,’ and I went back in. I saw this little girl who must have been two years old,” she said, remembering her own son of about the same age. “She was terrible. I don’t know if she survived. I thought she was alive but when the rescuers arrived, they took her away immediately.”
The men tried to put out the fire with fire extinguishers, but the flames were too strong, they said.
The mayor praised the couple.
“They threw themselves into the fire to rescue these people. They are true heroes of our time,” Brugnaro said.
With postal cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn