A nation mourns after 16 killed in school coach crash in Italy
Emergency workers said that the bus carrying 56 people returning from France, most of them teenagers aged 14-16, as well as several teachers and two drivers, ploughed into a bridge pillar
The Hungarian students had just finished a week of skiing in France when their bus swerved right, then left, then hit a highway barrier and burst into flames. Sixteen people were killed and over two dozen injured in a tragedy that sparked a national day of mourning in Hungary.
The impact of the crash just before midnight Friday on the northern Italian highway was so violent that the overpass support column actually entered several rows into the bus, officials said Saturday. The ensuing fireball burned some of the 16 dead beyond recognition and torched the bus, leaving just a skeleton of twisted steel.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash near Verona, and the cause wasn’t known, said a tearful police commander, Girolamo Lacquaniti. Of the 39 survivors, 26 were injured, some seriously, he said. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters in Budapest that one passenger was in an induced coma.
“The fire was so huge it took up practically half of the three-lane highway,” said Lanfranco Fossa, a businessman who stopped to offer help when he realised some injured youths had escaped the flames.
“These poor creatures, almost all of them were in short-sleeves, some without shoes,” he said. “I gave them what I had: a shirt, a blanket. And others stopped to give them things as well.”
Fossa said he also offered the kids his cellphone so they could call home to Budapest. He stayed over an hour to help translate for rescue crews, helping them find the most severely injured and understand what had happened. The students all spoke excellent English — but the rescuers didn’t.