Written by Staff Writer
At least 45 people have been killed and more than 150 injured in Bulgaria after a double-decker bus carrying schoolchildren crashed into a wooden bridge after sliding off the road, police said.
“I will not deny that it’s a tragic accident that took place — this does not mean this is a state of terror,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said at a press conference Thursday.
“With this crash that affected the whole country there is only one thing in common, the children were casualties.”
The death toll from the crash, on the BR-5 highway outside the southern city of Varna, will likely rise.
Eight of the 12 passengers who were in a medically-induced coma are in stable condition after being taken to hospital, he said.
Bulgaria’s president, Rumen Radev, made a statement on the tragedy, stating that “believing the stories that have come, all of us are in deep shock.”
Bulgaria’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, wrote on Twitter that his “heart is with the victims of this accident in Varna and their families.”
The school bus was taking children from a kindergarten in Varna to another kindergarten in the village of Rohovdovo when it fell 50 meters into the Moravian river. The children were heading to summer vacation.