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Six people were killed and two injured when a passenger bus fell off a bridge and into a swollen river in northwestern Spain.
The two survivors, a 63-year-old vehicle driver and a female passenger, were pulled from the river by ropes by firefighters and taken to a nearby hospital with varying degrees of injuries.
A police spokesperson told Reuters the driver had tested negative for alcohol and drugs.
A spokesperson added that search and rescue operations around the bridge had concluded while engineers tried to find a way to safely retrieve the wreckage from the Leres River.
Efforts to retrieve the bodies were hampered over the weekend by strong river currents and high flows from heavy rains sweeping through the Galician region.
The Mombus coach was traveling between the cities of Lugo and Vigo on Saturday night and stopped at the prison near the scene of the crash.
For unknown reasons, it skidded off the bridge straight road and plunged into the water from a height of at least 40 meters (131 feet) at approximately 9:30 pm local time (2030 GMT).
Emergency services were first alerted by a call from a passerby who noticed that the bridge’s protective barrier was badly damaged. Shortly thereafter, there was a second call from inside the bus as it was filling with water.
The river remained above its overflow limit overnight, forcing emergency rescue workers to suspend work for nearly two hours before resuming in the morning.
Authorities initially reported, based on the driver’s testimony, that a total of nine people were on board when the bus fell, but now the number is eight, based on missing person reports filed by relatives. It is believed that
Galicia Regional President Alfonso Rueda pointed to “very bad” weather conditions as one of the causes of the accident.
