Driver may have fallen ill before fatal bus crash in Venice

VENICE, Italy, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Italian authorities were investigating on Wednesday the cause of the horrific crash of a bus carrying foreign tourists on the outskirts of Venice, in which 21 people, including several children, and 15 others died. They were injured.

The electric bus crashed into the guardrail and went off an overpass on Tuesday night in the Mestre district, crashing into the ground more than 10 meters deep and catching fire.

Among the dead were five Ukrainians, a German and an Italian bus driver, Venice Prefect Michele Di Bari, the local representative of the Interior Ministry, said Wednesday. He did not comment on the nationality of the others killed.

The accident occurred shortly before 8:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. GMT) on a straight and normally busy road that connects Mestre with the historic center of Venice and runs next to a railway line.

“We assume that the driver may have fallen ill,” Veneto regional president Luca Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio. Witness accounts and security camera footage could provide additional clues, he said.

Four other Ukrainians, two Spaniards, two Austrians, a German, a Croatian and a Frenchman were among those injured in the accident, Di Bari said. The bus was transporting tourists back to a camp in nearby Marghera after a day in Venice.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke on Italian television this Wednesday to express his condolences to the families of all the victims.

‘BRING MY DAUGHTER’

Neighbors in the area said they had heard a loud bang and rushed to the scene to try to help.

“There was a woman who spoke English and was crying. As I took her out, she said, ‘bring my daughter, bring my daughter,'” Godstime Erheneden, originally from Nigeria, told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“She was a little girl, 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 wreckage was still being monitored for fire risks due to its batteries, firefighters said Wednesday.

The director 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 decelerating and appearing “almost stationary” when it hit the guardrail and fell, he said.

“I think the driver had an illness, because otherwise I can’t explain it,” Fiorese said, adding that the driver had started his shift less than two hours before the accident.

Images from the crash site showed that the overpass was equipped with an old, relatively thin metal railing, rather than newer, stronger concrete versions.

On Wednesday, yellow flowers were tied to the destroyed railing and the site was sectioned off behind concrete blocks.

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