Emergency services work at the scene of an accident in which a passenger bus plunged from a bridge into the Lérez river in Cerdedo-Cotobade, northwest Spain.
December 25, 2022. (Credit: CIVIL GUARD Spain/REUTERS)
(Reuters) --
Six people were killed and two injured after a passenger bus fell from a bridge into a flooded river in northwestern Spain, emergency services said on Sunday.
Two survivors—the 63-year-old driver of the vehicle and a passenger—were pulled out of the Lérez River by firefighters with ropes and taken to nearby hospitals with various injuries.
The driver tested negative for alcohol and drugs, a police spokesman told Reuters.
The spokesman added that the search and rescue operation around the bridge had now been completed, while engineers tried to find a way to safely recover the wreckage of the Lérez.
The strong current of the river and the high flow due to the heavy rains that have hit the region of Galicia during the weekend made efforts to recover the bodies difficult.
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The Monbus company bus was circulating on Saturday night between the cities of Lugo and Vigo and had stopped at a prison near the scene of the accident.
For reasons that are still unknown, he left the straight line of the bridge and plunged into the water in a fall of at least 40 meters around 9:30 p.m. local time.
The emergency services were first alerted by a call from a passerby who noticed that the bridge's protective barrier had been severely damaged.
Shortly after, they received a second call from inside the bus, which was filling with water.
The river remained above its overflow threshold throughout the night, forcing rescuers to suspend the operation for almost two hours before resuming it in the morning.
Authorities originally reported there were nine people aboard the bus at the time of the crash, based on the driver's testimony, though it is now believed there were eight, based on missing persons reports filed by family members.
The regional president of Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, pointed to the "very bad" weather conditions as one of the possible causes of the accident.
