The toll of the coach accident that occurred Tuesday, November 23 in Bulgaria, the deadliest in Europe in the last ten years, has been reduced to 44 dead by investigators who favor the trail of "
human error
" aggravated by the conditions traffic.
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A previous report reported 45 victims but only "
44 bodies were recovered from the incident,
" Deputy Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov said Thursday in Sofia, while 52 people were supposed to be on board the bus. and that 7 of them survived.
"
The most probable hypothesis of the accident is that of human error
", detailed in front of journalists Borislav Sarafov, who however did not rule out that "
bad signaling
" could have misled the driver in error.
The vehicle was part of a convoy of four transit coaches traveling between Turkey and North Macedonia.
"Probable transfer" from one bus to another
During the press conference, the head of the investigation Marian Marinov for his part referred to the "
probable transfer
" from one bus to another of one of the passengers, after a border control, during a break at a gas station. This missing passenger has not been identified. Tuesday morning at around 2 a.m., one of the four coaches in the convoy, carrying tourists mostly from North Macedonia, hit a crash barrier on the right on the wet highway, 40 km south of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.
The driver then turned left and the bus became stuck in other sunken slide rails.
The front door of the vehicle opened, but "
a huge fire
" prevented the passengers from escaping through this route, causing them to crowd in front of the back door, which was blocked.
The rapid fire is believed to have been caused by sparks from the crash barrier, part of which broke off was dragged by the bus over the asphalt.
"
The victims mainly died from asphyxiation,
" said the prosecutor.
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Those who survived were all sitting at the back of the bus.
They managed to extricate themselves thanks to one of the passengers who broke the rear window.
They were hospitalized in Sofia and are in stable condition.
Some suffer from broken bones and burns.
Two of them could be heard.
The terrorist trail is not envisaged.