Victim count difficult to establish: “terrible” bus accident leaves at least 38 dead in Brazil

Le bus s'est embrasé dans l'accident. – Capture d'écran X

L'accident s'est produit sur une autoroute reliant Sao Paulo à Vitória da Conquista. Après un choc d'une rare violence, le bus s'est embrasé, prenant au piège de très nombreux passagers.

A bus crash followed by a fire, which President Lula called a “terrible tragedy”, left at least 38 people dead Saturday in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (southeast), police announced. It is the worst road accident in the country since 2007, according to police data cited by the Brazilian press.

In the latest official toll, police confirmed “38 dead”. Eight people are hospitalized in serious condition. Among those killed are the bus driver and at least one child, firefighters noted, who needed a crane to remove the charred bodies. They had previously stated that there were thirteen survivors, who were taken into care by emergency services.

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Two versions

The bus was traveling on the highway connecting Sao Paulo (southeast) to Vitória da Conquista, in the state of Bahia (northeast). According to testimonies collected by firefighters, there are two versions of what happened.

According to the first, one of the bus's tires punctured in the middle of the night, around 3:30 a.m., causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle and hit a truck. The second version states that a block of granite that was being transported by the truck fell onto the bus that was following it. After the collision, the bus caught fire. Another vehicle hit the back of the bus, but its occupants survived the impact.

“A terrible tragedy”

“I send my prayers to the families of the more than thirty victims of the accident in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais”, posted President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on his social networks. “I pray for the recovery of the survivors of this terrible tragedy“.

The governor of the state of Minas Gerais said he was working “to ensure that the families of the victims are taken care of in order to face this tragedy in the most humane way possible, on Christmas Eve”.

Firefighters initially said they had fought the flames and rescued 22 bodies, but they later revised the toll upwards after accessing another part of the bus using a crane. A fire department spokeswoman told AFP by phone that it was difficult to establish an exact death toll “due to the condition of the bodies”.

17 dead on a mountain road in late November

Brazil has the third-highest number of road deaths in the world, after India and China, according to the World Health Organization's 2023 status report on road safety.

In late November, a bus crash in the northeastern state of Alagoas killed 17 people when the vehicle plunged into a ravine while traveling on a mountain road. mountain.