At least 21 dead following ‘apocalyptic’ Venice bus crash

At least people, including two children and a number of tourists, have died after a bus crashed off a bridge in Venice and caught fire.

According to local reports, the bus was rented to transport tourists between Venice and a campsite in the Marghera district before the incident occurred at around 7:30 pm local time.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minster expressed, “profound condolences” in a statement.

“I am in contact with Mayor Luigi Brugnaro and (transport minister) Matter Salvini in order to follow the news of this tragedy.’

Firefighters who responded to the scene said the bus veered off a bridge beside a railway line in the north of the city, falling around 30 metres and that tourists from Ukraine and Germany were among those who passed in the accident.

“A tragedy has struck our community this evening”, mayor Brugnaro wrote on Facebook, stating the crash site was “an apocalyptic scene.”

“The provisional toll is at least 21 fatalities and over 20 people hospitalised,” said Luca Zaia, the governor of the Venice region, deploring a “tragedy of enormous proportions”.

“Efforts are on to extract and identify the bodies,” he said.

“The victims and the wounded include people of several nationalities, not just Italians”.

(Featured image: Firefighters work on the site of a bus accident in Mestre, near Venice. Picture: AFP)