Firefighters in Venice work until dawn clearing wreckage of bus crash that caused 21 deaths

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A bus carrying dozens of people plummeted 50 feet from an elevated road in Venice, Italy, causing a fiery crash that killed 21 people and injured at least 15, mostly foreign tourists returning to a nearby campsite.

Those who died in the Tuesday night crash included at least five Ukrainians, one German citizen and the man who was driving the bus, according to Venice prefecture.

At least two of the dead were children, Venice prefect Michele Di Bari said, adding that many of the people involved in the accident were "young." Nine people were in critical condition, hospital officials said late Wednesday morning, including a 3-year-old girl from Ukraine.

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Firefighters worked until dawn Wednesday to clear the wreckage. Later in the morning, traffic was slowly passing the spot where the bus burst through a guardrail and a rusted fence.

Passersby stopped to contemplate the accident. A couple of locals said that the overpass was more than 60 years old and that nothing similar had ever happened there, while a man wearing a biker jacket stopped his motorcycle to tie to a post a bouquet of plastic flowers.

Emergency services attend the scene of a passenger bus accident near the city of Venice, Italy, on Oct. 3, 2023. (Slow Press/LiveMedia/LaPresse via AP)

The bus was carrying foreign tourists from Venice’s Piazzale Roma to the Hu campground on Tuesday evening when it fell from an elevated street next to railway tracks in the borough of Mestre, catching fire. Tourists frequently stay in boroughs across the lagoon from the canals of Venice’s famous historic center to find cheaper accommodations.

The injured, including five in serious condition, included French, Spanish, Austrian and Croatian nationals, local officials said. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that two people from Spain were injured in the accident, and both were in hospital and in good condition.

The reason for the crash was unclear. Venice city councilor Renato Boraso said the driver, Alberto Rizzotto, was experienced. Local prosecutors are investigating if he felt ill.

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Rescuers noted that the fact that the bus was electric contributed to the massive fire and made rescue operations more difficult.

Godstime Erheneden was in his apartment near the accident when he heard a crash outside. He rushed outside and was among the first to enter the bus.

"When we went in, we saw the driver right away. He was dead. I carried a woman out on my shoulders, then a man," Erheneden told the local newspaper il Gazzettino.

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"The woman was screaming, 'my daughter, my daughter,’ and I went back in. I saw this girl who must have been 2 years old. I have a son who is a year and 10 months old, and they are the same size. I felt like I was holding my son in my arms. It was terrible. I don’t know if she survived. I thought she was alive but when the rescuers arrived they took her away immediately," Erheneden said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the scene was "apocalyptic" and declared a state of mourning.

In 2017, 16 people on a bus carrying Hungarian students died in an accident near the northern city of Verona. And in 2013, 40 people were killed in one of Italy’s worst vehicle accidents when a bus plunged off a viaduct close to the southern city of Avellino.