12 killed as Polish bus overturns in Hungary

BUDAPEST

Emergency services attend the scene after a bus went off the road.

A Polish bus overturned on a Hungarian highway early on Aug. 16, killing 12 people and leaving at least 10 with serious injuries, Prime Minister Peter Magyar and officials said.

The coach, heading from Serbia to Poland, crashed at 1 a.m. on the M3 highway near Mezokeresztes, east of Budapest, according to a police statement.

The bus, with 57 passengers and two drivers, “left the road, ended up in a ditch and came to a stop on its side,” the national disaster management agency said in a social media post.

Eleven people were declared dead at the scene and another person died in hospital, the agency said. The ambulance service said 37 people suffered minor injuries.

The fire brigade and other rescuers had to drag some people out through the windows because they were trapped in the bus. Two cranes eventually lifted the bus out of the ditch, according to the disaster management agency.

It is the worst road accident in Hungary since a train hit a German tourist bus at Siofok in 2003, killing 33 people. In 2002, a bus carrying Polish pilgrims crashed near the western town of Balatonszentgyorgy, killing 19 people.

“I send my sincere condolences to the families of the victims,” Magyar said on social media. “I thank all the people who took part in the rescue operation.”