At least 45 people were killed when a bus with license plates from northern Macedonia caught fire on a Bulgarian highway in the early hours of today, a senior Bulgarian Interior Ministry official said.
Among the victims are at least 12 children, reports the Bulgarian news agency BGNES.
The bus transported 52 people, citizens of Northern Macedonia.
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45 people killed in road accident with tourist bus in #Bulgari tohttps://t.co/syMyVZg3Uk- APA News Agency (@APA_English) November 23, 2021
Seven burn victims, who "managed to escape" from the accident, were rushed to the emergency department of a Sofia hospital, Nikolai Nikolov, a Bulgarian Interior Ministry official, told BTV.
He himself spoke of "forty-five or forty-six dead" in the accident.
Mr. Nikolov added that it is still not clear whether the fire caused the accident in which the vehicle was involved or was caused by it.
The tragedy unfolded around 02:00 (local time and Greek time) on a section of the road network about 40 kilometers south of Sofia.
The scene of the accident has been cordoned off by the police.
Most of the victims were citizens of northern Macedonia, a diplomat at the country's embassy in Sofia told BTV.
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