Relatives arrive in Italy for loved ones after deadly Venice bus crash

Relatives of victims of a deadly bus crash in Italy began arriving in Venice from other countries Wednesday, looking to comfort injured loved ones or identify their dead.

Twenty-one people including a toddler were killed when the bus carrying tourists broke through a guardrail on an overpass Tuesday evening and plunged to the ground, before bursting into flames.

The bus was carrying tourists from Venice’s historic centre to a camping site.

Survivors at the Angelo di Mestre hospital “are asking for information about their loved ones who were with them,” said head of medicine Chiara Berti.

“There were entire families, grandparents, grandchildren, spouses” on board, she told reporters.

Moreno De Rossi, in charge of the psychological support team for the survivors, said it was “a painful, very difficult moment”, and there were officials on hand to help with translation.

The dead included nine Ukrainians, four Romanians and three Germans, according to the spokesperson for Venice’s mayor.

Two Portugese, one South African and one Croatian also died, as did the Italian driver, he told AFP.

The Croatian victim was a woman who had been honeymooning in Venice, while her newlywed husband was hospitalised, media reports said.

Fifteen people remain in hospital, 13 of whom have been identified as foreign nationals, the Veneto region said.

Ten of the 15 were in intensive care, it said.

Venice authorities have declared three days of mourning after the tragedy, which has sparked debate over the state of Italy’s crumbling infrastructure.

“The bus flipped upside down,” said Mauro Luongo, Venice’s fire brigade commander. “The impact was terrible because it fell from over 10 metres (32 feet).”

Emergency workers spent hours removing bodies from the charred, crushed wreckage, a scene described by Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro as “apocalyptic”.

Boubacar Toure, a 27-year-old from Gambia who had been working at a building site near the accident, told journalists he had been called over by the fire brigade to help with the rescue.

“I pulled three or four people out, including a little girl, and also a dog. The driver was already dead,” Toure said.

Nigerian welder Godstime Erheneden, 30, said