The bus plunged down a 10-metre slope with around 50 people on board (AFP Photo/STRINGER) |
Caniço (Portugal) (AFP) - Portugal and Germany mourned on Thursday after 29 German tourists died when their bus tumbled down a slope and crashed into a house on the tourist island of Madeira.
Drone
footage showed the mangled wreckage lying against a building on a hillside near
the town of Canico, the vehicle's roof partially crushed and front window
smashed.
Rescue
workers attended to injured passengers on the grass where the bus rested
nearby, some of them bearing bloodied head bandages and blood-stained clothes.
A woman who
survived the accident said on the TVI television channel that the bus crashed
after hitting a wall.
"It
happened just after the bus started, one minute or a few seconds later. People
were flying through the windows," said the woman, who was not named.
"Some
people were crying for help and we could immediately see some people were
dead," said her husband, who also survived the crash. "Help arrived
very fast."
Local authorities said most of the dead were aged in their 40s and 50s. Twelve men and 17 women were among the victims, an official at the Nelio Mendonca hospital, Tomasia Alves, told reporters.
Rescue
workers helped survivors at the crash site (AFP Photo/RUI SILVA)
|
Local authorities said most of the dead were aged in their 40s and 50s. Twelve men and 17 women were among the victims, an official at the Nelio Mendonca hospital, Tomasia Alves, told reporters.
They were
among the more than one million tourists who visit the Atlantic islands off the
coast of Morocco each year, attracted by their subtropical climate and rugged
volcanic terrain.
"It is
with sadness and dismay that I think of our compatriots and all the other
people affected by the terrible bus accident in Madeira," German
Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement.
"My
sincere condolences go above all to those families that have lost loved ones in
this tragedy," she added, thanking the Portuguese emergency services for
their efforts.
Investigation launched
The bus was
only five years old and has been recently inspected, officials
said (AFP
Photo/RUI SILVA)
|
Investigation launched
Witnesses
and officials said the 50-odd tourists had left their hotel on their way to the
regional capital Funchal for dinner when the bus crashed on Wednesday.
Local media
said two Portuguese nationals survived the crash: the driver and a tour guide.
Prosecutors
have opened a probe. The vice-president of the regional government Pedro Calado
said it was "premature" to attribute the cause of the accident.
He said the
bus was five years old and had been recently inspected.
German
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said he would travel to Madeira on Thursday with a
team of doctors and psychologists to "speak personally with those
affected".
The injured
were "in a state of shock, with memories of terrible images. An injured
woman said she had lost her partner," Ilse Everlien Berardo, the pastor at
the German Evangelical church in Madeira, told Germany's RTL network.
Frankfurt-based tour operator Trendtours said 51 of its customers were involved in the accident. Another company, Schauinsland, said it also had two customers in the crash.
Wellwishers
left flowers for the victims (AFP Photo/MIGUEL RIOPA)
|
Frankfurt-based tour operator Trendtours said 51 of its customers were involved in the accident. Another company, Schauinsland, said it also had two customers in the crash.
The
companies sent their condolences to victims' families and said they were sending
teams to Madeira to offer support.
Trendtour
said the bus had been hired by a local operator and crashed off the road
"for a reason still unknown".
Makeshift
morgue
A makeshift
morgue has been set up at the airport in Funchal, local media reports said.
Medical teams will be flown in from Lisbon to carry out autopsies.
German
holidaymakers were the second largest group after British tourists to visit
Madeira in 2017, according to Madeira's tourism office.
Known as the Pearl of the Atlantic and the Floating Garden, Madeira is home to just 270,000 inhabitants.
Madeira
lies in the Atlantic off the coast of Morocco (AFP
Photo/Maria-Cecilia REZENDE)
|
Known as the Pearl of the Atlantic and the Floating Garden, Madeira is home to just 270,000 inhabitants.
The
Portuguese government decreed three days of national mourning.
"I
express the sorrow and solidarity of all the Portuguese people in this tragic
moment, and especially for the families of the victims who I have been told
were all German," President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told Portuguese
television.
Alves said
the hospital hoped to begin returning victims' bodies to their families by
Saturday.
The last
serious bus accident in Madeira occurred in December 2005, killing five Italian
tourists in Sao Vicente.
No comments:
Post a Comment