The driver of a bus that crashed near Venice, Italy, killing 21 people may have experienced some kind of medical emergency before he careened off an overpass, plunging the vehicle more than 30 feet, officials said as the nationalities of the dead were revealed Wednesday.
Authorities have launched an investigation into the fiery crash after learning the 40-year-old driver Alberto Rizzotto, who was among the dead, was only a couple hours into his shift when the tragedy occurred just before 8 p.m. on a frequently traveled and straight road in the Mestre district.
Video of the crash shows that no other vehicles made contact with the bus that was carrying foreign tourists to a campsite before it fell onto an area near railroad tracks and caught flames.
Prosecutors said the shuttle bus scraped against the guardrail for more than 150 feet before it broke through and went off the overpass, landing upside down on the ground below.
The city-owned bus was just a year old and Rizotto was employed by the bus company for seven years and had a perfect driving record, according to officials.
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called the crash “inexplicable” while other officials believe a medical episode could have been the cause.
“We presume the driver may have fallen ill,” Veneto Regional President Luca Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio.
Investigators are hoping to recover video from cameras onboard the bus to reveal what happened inside before the deadly crash.
Officials are also looking into whether the electric bus’ battery may have contributed to the fire that burned through the wreckage. However, the cause of the crash, Brugnaro cautioned, had “nothing to do with the fact that it is electric.”
The driver was the only Italian killed in the crash, officials said Wednesday. The remaining dead include nine Ukrainians, four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, one Croat and one South African.
Another 15 people were injured, with most of their wounds fractures and burns. Four Ukrainians — including a 3-year-old girl who suffered serious burns — as well as travelers from Spain, Austria, France, Croatia and Germany were wounded.
Nine victims remained in the intensive care unit Wednesday.
The tourists had spent the day sightseeing along Venice’s famed canals and were heading back to the Hu Venezia Camping in Town via a 15-minute bus ride when the disaster struck.
Brugnaro previously called the crash scene “apocalyptic.”
“I won’t forget what I saw for the rest of my life,” he told The Associated Press from his office in Mestre. “Seeing all those people crammed inside a bus, down there, is something you can’t describe.”
Some of the first to the scene were good Samaritans who lived near the crash site and heard a boom followed by screams.
Flatmates and longtime Italian residents Godstime Erheneden, 30, of Nigeria, and Boubacar Touré, 27, of Gambia, were making dinner in an apartment overlooking the busy overpass when they saw the wreck below.
Erheneden rushed on the bus — past the driver who he said was already dead — and carried a woman and a man out on his shoulders, he told Venice daily Il Gazzettino.
“The woman was screaming, ‘My daughter, my daughter,’ and I went back in. I saw this girl who must have been 2 years old,’’ he said, reminded of his own son about the same age. “It was terrible. I don’t know if she survived. I thought she was alive but when the rescuers arrived, they took her away immediately.’’
The men tried to put out the fire with extinguishers but the flames were too strong, they said.
The mayor commended the pair.
“They threw themselves into the fire to rescue these people. They are real heroes of our time,’’ Brugnaro said.
With Post wires