A bus registered in Spain crashed into the Pyrénées-Orientales on Sunday December 1, an accident which caused the death of two people.
The images of the accident are impressive. The driver’s cabin was partly embedded in the rock of the cliff, leaving little imagination as to the violence of the incident. The bus ended up stopping when it hit the cliff going the wrong way on a national road. Pyrenees-Orientales Sunday December 1st at the end of the afternoon. An accident which caused the death of two people, according to a provisional report.
“The exact circumstances of the accident remain to be determined,” indicated the department prefecture and SDIS 66 in a press release. But according to initial hypotheses, the coach hit the cliff after encountering braking problems. “We were driving behind. He was zigzagging for a kilometer and a half. It looked like he was trying to brush against the barrier, as if he wanted to lose speed, before crashing into the cliff,” explained a couple. motorists to The Independent. “The driver did everything to slow down the bus”, testifies a survivor at newspaper.
A psychological unit has been set up
The gendarmerie was notified of the accident around 5:10 p.m., reports The Parisian. It took place on the Nationale 320, towards the Col de Puymorens, near Porté-Puymorens. Traffic on the road was quickly stopped by the police, who quickly arrived on the scene. The white plan was triggered by the prefecture in several hospitals in Occitanie – alerting them to a significant increase in their activities. Two helicopters were mobilized to help illuminate the area as darkness quickly fell. Five Spanish ambulances and two medical vehicles from Andorra came to reinforce the staff on site.
The bus, registered in Spain, was the only vehicle involved in the accident. There were 47 people on board, including the driver. The prefecture published a revised report at 10 p.m., reporting two deaths, seven injured in absolute emergency and 26 injured in relative emergency. Earlier in the evening, a third death was mentioned: one of the victims died from his injuries. This information has not been confirmed by the prefecture and does not appear in the most recent report.
We do not yet know the identity of the deceased – nor if the driver is safe. But the bus was carrying Spanish nationals traveling to Barcelona and Colombians, according to The Parisian. The uninjured passengers were transported to a reception center in the Carol Valley. A psychological unit was opened for the victims and their families.