Key takeaways:
- Twelve people died after a Polish-registered tourist bus carrying 57 passengers and two drivers overturned on Hungary’s M3 motorway near Mezokeresztes.
- Hungary’s ambulance service said 37 people had minor injuries, one had life-threatening injuries and nine others were seriously injured.
- Police said preliminary information suggests the driver likely fell asleep; the driver was taken into custody.
Twelve people were killed and dozens injured when a Polish tourist bus veered off a motorway in eastern Hungary and overturned in a ditch, authorities said.
The crash happened at around 1 a.m. local time Sunday on the M3 motorway near Mezokeresztes, about 140 kilometers, or 87 miles, east of Budapest. The road links the Hungarian capital with the northeastern city of Nyiregyhaza.
Police said the bus, registered in Poland and carrying Polish tourists, was traveling toward Nyiregyhaza when it left a straight section of the motorway, drove into a ditch and overturned. It had 57 passengers and two drivers on board and was traveling from Serbia to Poland, police said.
“A Polish-registered bus travelling on the M3 motorway towards Nyiregyhaza … veered off the straight stretch of road into a ditch and overturned. Preliminary information suggests the driver likely fell asleep,” police said on their website.
The driver was taken into custody, police said.
Eleven people were declared dead at the scene, and another person died later in hospital, Hungary’s national disaster management agency said. The ambulance service said it treated 37 people for minor injuries. It also reported one person with life-threatening injuries and nine others with serious injuries, while police described 10 people as seriously injured.
Firefighters and other rescue workers worked to free passengers trapped inside the overturned bus. Some people had to be pulled out through the windows, Al Jazeera reported. Hungary’s state media, cited by the BBC, reported that 35 of the 57 passengers and two drivers had been rescued by firefighters at one stage of the operation.
Emergency crews tried to lift the rear axle of the 24-tonne bus to reach people trapped underneath before cranes arrived to raise the entire vehicle, according to the Hungarian news agency MTI.
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar offered his “sincere condolences” to the families of those killed and wished the injured a speedy recovery. He also thanked the rescue workers sent to the crash site.
Polish officials said they were in contact with Hungarian authorities. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X: “The consular service is operational. We are in contact with the Hungarian authorities. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will provide verified information.”
Polish President Karol Nawrocki also expressed grief over the crash. “It is with deep sorrow that I received the tragic news of the Polish bus accident in Hungary, in which so many of our compatriots died,” he said.
Al Jazeera reported that the crash was Hungary’s deadliest road accident since 2003, when a train hit a German tourist bus at Siofok, killing 33 people.
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