TORNADIZOS DE AVILA: A bus carrying more than 30 passengers careened off a central Spanish highway and ploughed into a metal safety barrier yesterday, killing nine people in an impact that blew out windows and tore away one side of the vehicle.
Another 22 people were injured, five seriously, when the bus came off the road as it travelled downhill on a winding road near Avila northwest of Madrid, trapping several passengers in the wreckage, emergency services said.
The blue single-decker bus, which carried the markings of a private bus company, Cevesa, ended up nearly on one side, a buckled safety barrier preventing it from sliding further down a roadside slope.
Windows on the entire right-hand side of the bus were torn away and the buckled frames left exposed after the bus apparently scraped along a rocky wall before striking the metal barrier.
The bus’s broken windscreen hung open like a curtain.
“Nine people have died and 22 have been injured,” said a statement by the emergency services for the region of Castile and Leon. It was Spain’s deadliest bus crash in five years. AFP
