At least 38 passengers died and more than 10 were seriously injured, including children, when a bus plunged off a viaduct on a treacherous stretch of mountainous highway in the Campania region of southern Italy on Sunday night, officials told Italian media.
The highway police told state radio that the bus slammed into cars that had slowed for heavy traffic. This caused the bus to fall 100 feet, or 30 meters, off the road and down a ravine. Italian television showed images of rescue workers pulling people from dozens of mangled cars that lined the highway about 160 miles, or 257 kilometers, south of Rome.
Italian media showed a row of corpses under white sheets in the early morning light Monday. Rescue workers removed the bus to a demolition center for investigation. The stretch of the A16 highway between the towns of Monteforte Irpino and Baiano, near Avellino, is mountainous, and the bus crashed on a curving descent.
Authorities have opened an investigation into whether the driver, who died in the crash, was at fault; whether the bus was in proper condition; whether there were adequate signs on the road signaling construction work; and whether the guardrail over which the bus plunged met safety standards, the ANSA news agency reported…
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