Bulgaria Bus Crash Kills At Least 45

A total of 45 people lost their lives as a bus carrying mostly North Macedonian tourists crashed in flames on a highway in western Bulgaria hours before daybreak on Tuesday, officials said.

Seven people who came out from the burning bus were taken to the Pirogov emergency hospital in the Bulgarian capital Sofia and were in a stable condition, hospital staff said. They had suffered burns and one had a broken leg.

Bulgaria’s interior ministry announced that 45 people had died, making it the most deadly bus accident in the Balkan country’s history.

The cause of the accident was unclear, but the bus appeared to have hit a highway barrier either before or after it caught fire, Bulgarian officials said.

Television footage showed the bus charred and gutted by fire in the middle of the highway.

Stefan Yanev, the acting prime minister of Bulgaria, visited the site of the crash on Tuesday. “This news shook us,” he told reporters, adding that his government was working swiftly to investigate what had happened.