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2:14
Investigating causes of the bus fire in Bulgaria that left 46 dead
So far, the possible causes of the accident may be due to technical errors in the vehicle, or due to human failures.
The Ministry of the Interior in Bulgaria announced that the accident occurred in the early morning of November 23, on a western highway, and this left 34 adults and 12 children completely burned.
According to the investigations carried out, the bus may have collided before catching fire, possibly with a guardrail of the highway, however, as it has not yet been fully confirmed, an in-depth investigation will be opened.
Among the various hypotheses that have been raised, Boyko Rashkov, interior minister, reported that one of the causes could be that the driver has fallen asleep, which prevented him from opening the doors, or that he was simply the first to die.
Before the accident
The affected bus was in the company of four more, which belong to a Normandon tourist company, and shortly before the tragedy, they made a rest stop at a gas station.
Until that moment, everything was moving normally, it was even announced that they were traveling together and entered the country and traveled on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, passing through the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint.
Police Information
The head of the Bulgarian National Police, Stanimir Stanev reported that more than 50 people were traveling in the vehicle, and at the time of the accident 7 people managed to jump out of it, and that is how they survived.
Among the people who jumped from the burning bus, only one of them was injured but minimally, and when they were found they were immediately transferred to the Pirogov emergency hospital to treat the burns.
For their part, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, and Foreign Minister Buyar Osmani, visited the hospital where the victims were, and were able to confirm that those affected were ethnic Albanians from Macedonia.
Final statements
Stefan Yanev, the Acting Prime Minister of Bulgaria, called what happened a "huge tragedy" and told the press that: "We hope that we can learn the lessons from this tragic incident and that we can prevent these incidents in the future".
He also reported that they only found ashes at the scene of the accident, and therefore the investigation will be in depth to find the true causes of what happened.
