By
The Associated Press
SOFIA, Bulgaria - At least 45 people died early Tuesday morning after a bus carrying a group of North Macedonians home from a tourist trip crashed and caught fire in western Bulgaria, according to local authorities and media.
The accident occurred around 2 a.m. and there were children among the victims, according to authorities.
Seven people were transferred to hospitals.
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The cause of the accident was not confirmed at first, although the vehicle appeared to have collided with a highway guardrail before crashing and catching fire.
The bus was part of a caravan of four.
The authorities indicated that an investigation would be opened.
Photographs taken shortly after the incident showed the bus engulfed in flames and thick smoke rising from the scene.
"I have never seen anything more horrifying in my life," Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov told reporters at the scene.
"The picture is hideous, the people who were on the bus have turned to coal," Raskov said.
“It is impossible to say how many there were.
There were four buses that traveled together and it is possible that the passengers changed buses at the stops ”.
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The acting Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Stefan Yanev, who also visited the site, told reporters that it was "a huge tragedy".
Officials work at the site where 45 people were killed when a North Macedonian-registered bus caught fire on a road near the town of Bosnek on November 23, 2021.Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
"I take this opportunity to send my condolences to the families of the victims," Yanev said.
"Hopefully we learn lessons from this tragic incident and can avoid such incidents in the future."
Representatives from the Macedonian embassy visited a hospital to which some of the victims were transferred, according to the Bulgarian news agency Novinite.
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North Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told Bulgarian broadcaster bTV that he had spoken with one of the survivors.
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"One of the passengers told me he was sleeping and was woken up by an explosion," Zaev told the television station.
Authorities will gather information that is "important to the families of the dead and the survivors," he added.
Bulgaria, a country of the European Union with 7 million inhabitants, had in 2019 the second highest road mortality rate of the block of 27 countries, with 89 deaths per million inhabitants, according to data from the European Commission.
