There were also claims from surviving passengers that a burst tire was to blame for what has been described as one of Italy’s worst road accidents, as residents of a small southern Italian town were travelling home late on Sunday from a weekend outing.
The coach collided with a series of cars as the driver, who was among those killed, wrestled with the vehicle but was unable to prevent it crashing through a concrete barrier and falling almost 100 feet into the ravine below.
Firemen worked through the night to recover bodies from the wreckage at the remote, rural spot near Monteforte Irpino in Campania, and also freed 12 survivors from the twisted metal and torn seats of the
coach, which was ripped in half by the impact and had its roof torn off.
A further nine who were travelling in cars hit by the bus were also injured.
The passengers on the bus — many of them children — were all from the town of Pozzuoli near Naples and had left their homes on Friday to visit a thermal bath and the home town near Benevento of Padre Pio, the Italian saint.
“These were families from council homes on a privately organized trip,” said Fr Paolo Auricchio, a priest from the area.
Italian police and motorway officials opened an urgent investigation into what had gone wrong. A statement from the motorway operator Autostrade per l’Italia said the coach appeared to have been travelling fast near slower-moving traffic, even though a lower speed limit had been clearly indicated.
But one survivor of the crash told relations that the bus suffered a burst tire just seconds before it plunged off the flyover, which passes between wooded hills and over hazelnut groves above Naples.
Vincenzo Rusciano said: “My niece, Annalisa, told me a left-side tire of the bus burst. The driver tried to keep control in any way possible but could not manage and the bus swerved, ending up in the ravine.”
“You would think that the barriers on the viaducts and bridges should prevent this type of accident,” said Alessio Barbarulo, the head of the fire brigade division that co-ordinated the rescue effort. “But it seems the impact was so strong that even the barrier gave way.”
By dawn, yesterday rescue workers had lifted the lines of bodies off the road below, hosed away the blood and allowed the wreckage to be taken away on the back of a flatbed truck.
The bodies were taken to the school gym in the small town of Monteforte Irpino, where streams of relations of the dead arrived to walk down lines of open coffins spread out beneath the basketball nets, identifying their lost family members. After filing out of the gym, they sat in silent groups next to the school’s climbing frame, under an awning erected to ward off the heat. Red Cross workers circulated with plates of pasta and offers of counselling for the shocked families.
“I have lost my sister and her son — my wife just called me at work to tell me to come here,” said Amadeo Musto, 56, whose body shook with silent sobs as he spoke.
Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, who had arrived to pay his respects to a childhood friend who died in the crash with the friend’s wife and sister in law, said: “People here still can’t believe what is happening. My wife should have been on the trip, but couldn’t make it, and I thank God for that.”
The name of one victim kept recurring: Luciano Caiazzo, 40, who worked in a salami shop, had organized the trip, as he had many others over the past 15 years.
“He was a great organizer — setting up trips to religious sanctuaries and fun trips was his passion,” said Salvatore Defelice, 42, a friend who had come to offer support to relations of the victims. Mr. Caiazzo had booked trips over the years for hundreds of residents of three tight-knit neighbourhoods in Pozzuoli — Toiano, Monterusciello and Licola.
Getty ImagesFriends
and relatives of the victims of coach crash on the A16 motorway between
Monteforte Irpino and Baiano, react near an elementary school facility
turned into a morgue on July 29, 2013 , in Monteforte Irpino, Italy.
“Everyone there will know someone who died,” said Mr. Defelice.
Enrico Letta, Italy’s prime minister, who was on an official trip to Greece, described the crash as “as huge tragedy.”
As the afternoon wore on, a priest led a prayer which the crowd stood to join, a prelude to the funeral mass planned today at a sports arena in Pozzuoli where the coffins will be sent. When the coffins were finally loaded into hearses, one by one, each was solemnly applauded by the onlookers.
There was one piece of good news among the tragedy: one family of four had all survived the 100-foot plunge.
“They were not sitting together,” said Alessio Barbarulo, the chief of the fire crew at the scene. “It is just by chance they survived.”
But the mood was best summed up by Father Auricchio. “It seems calm, but there is a lot of anger here,” he said.
AP Photo/Salvatore LaportaPeople
comfort each other outside a gym facility of an elementary school
turned into a morgue, in Monteforte Irpino southern Italy, Monday, July
29, 2013.
AP Photo/Gregorio BorgiaThe
wreckage of a bus is lifted by a crane after the bus crashed off a
highway, seen at top, near Avellino, southern Italy, Monday, July 29,
2013.
AGENZIA CONTROLUCESTRINGER/AFP/Getty ImagesRescuers
prepare the coffins of victims of a bus crash on July 28, 2013 on the
road between Monteforte Irpino and Baiano, southern Italy.
A
coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in
southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such
accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
A
coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in
southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such
accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
A
coach carrying pilgrims plunged off a motorway flyover near Naples in
southern Italy, killing at least 39 people in one of the worst such
accidents in Europe in recent years.
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
Local prosecutors on Monday launched an investigation into possible manslaughter over Sunday evening’s accident close to the town of Avellino, according to Italian media reports.
Rescuers were still battling to extract people from the manged wreckage of the coach.
The vehicle, carrying 48 people, had been travelling at high speed when it crashed on a busy dual carriageway between Naples and Bari in an area Italian media described as an accident black spot.
It rammed several cars before plunging through a crash barrier and down a steep slope before coming to a stop on its side off the road about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Naples.
“As of now, the death toll has risen to 39,” said Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi.
The driver was among the dead and about a dozen people were injured, including children. There were reports that some people in the dozen or so cars caught up in the chaos had also been hurt.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, on a visit to Athens, said it was a “very sad time” for Italy and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims before addressing a conference in the Greek capital.
Italian news agency ANSA said the manslaughter probe would look into the possible role of the driver, as well as the state of the coach and the crash barrier on the highway.
Ansa said the driver’s body would be examined for the possible presence of alcohol or drugs while traffic police have seized the vehicle documents from the coach operator Mondotravel.
An AFP photographer at the scene described rescue workers searching the crash site early Monday under arc-lights set up around the wreckage of the coach.
“The situation is critical. Our men are working to save as many lives as possible,” fire chief Pellegrino Iandolo told Sky TG24.
Rescue workers said they had pulled 33 bodies from the wreckage and found three more of people thrown from the vehicle as it plunged 30 metres (100 feet) down a ravine.
Another two died in hospital of their injuries.
“We are still trying to extract people from the vehicle,” a police spokesman said. “Our priority now is to free the wounded.”
Photographers at the scene described how fire crews raced to find any remaining survivors, as the victims were laid out under white sheets along the roadside.
They said about a dozen wrecked cars littered the highway.
“Looking down from the overpass, the scene of the tragedy: some 30 bodies covered by white sheets, lined up along the roadside,” said Cesare Abbate of Italy’s ANSA news agency.
From time to time, rescue workers called for “a moment of silence” to listen for signs of life from the wreckage, he said.
One survivor, quoted by his uncle who met him in hospital, reported hearing a tyre exploding and that the driver had been unable to control the vehicle.
The passengers had been returning to Naples following a pilgrimage to Pietrelcina, the birthplace of Saint Pio, an Italian priest canonised in 2002 who is highly venerated in southern Italy.
The Naples-Bari highway has been closed to traffic, the police said.
The last major coach accident in Europe was in March 2012 in Switzerland, when a coach carrying Belgian schoolchildren home from a skiing holiday crashed, killing 28 people, including 22 children.
The accident also comes just days after a train crash in Spain last Wednesday which killed 79 people, the deadliest rail disaster in the country in decades.
The driver appeared in court on Sunday on 79 counts of reckless homicide over the crash near the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela, northwest Spain
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/italy-coach-plunge-kills-39/#sthash.69pBvIGK.dpuf
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