(ANSAmed) - SKOPJE, NOVEMBER 23 - The authorities of North Macedonia have proclaimed three days of national mourning for today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in memory of the 46 victims of the serious road accident that last night involved a tourist bus in Bulgaria with Macedonian citizens of return from Istanbul.
In the disaster, which took place along a highway not far from Sofia, only seven people were saved, currently hospitalized with injuries of various kinds in a hospital in the Bulgarian capital. Their conditions have been definable.
During the three days of mourning, the Macedonian flag will be placed at half-mast on public buildings and diplomatic offices abroad. In the meantime, investigations have begun to ascertain the causes of the accident, including checks and technical inspections on the bus that went off the road in the night and which immediately took fire with no escape for most of the passengers. It is assumed that the driver is distracted or falls asleep, or a technical problem with the vehicle. The investigating magistrate VilmaRuskoska went to Sofia, while the owner of 'BesaTrans', the travel company to which the vehicle belonged, went to the scene of the accident. Dozens of relatives of the victims went to the headquarters of 'BesaTrans' in Skopje this morning waiting for more detailed information on the figure,while some police patrols also took a seat in front of the travel agency, for security reasons. In the middle of the day, however, as no manager of 'Besa Trans' showed up, everyone left. Among the seven people injured and hospitalized there is also a Serbian citizen of Albanian ethnicity and his Macedonian girlfriend from Kumanovo. This was confirmed by the Serbian ambassador to Bulgaria to regional media. It seems that the seven survivors of the straged slept in the back of the bus and at the time of the accident they managed to break the window by jumping out and escaping to safety. Due to the disaster, the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev postponed his resignation from the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SDSM), announced for today in front of the party leadership. (ANSAmed).