12 dead in bus crash with Polish license plates on a Hungarian highway

Twelve people were killed and ten were seriously injured when a bus registered in Poland overturned on a highway in Hungary in the early hours of Sunday, marking the country’s worst accident in more than 20 years.

The crash occurred around 1:00 a.m. local time (23:00 GMT) on the M3 motorway, as the bus was heading to Mezőkeresztes, approximately 140 kilometers east of Budapest, according to a statement from the Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen county police.

The National Disaster Management Agency stated that the bus, which was carrying 57 passengers and two drivers traveling from Serbia to Poland, “veered off the road and fell into a ditch.”

Hungarian media quoted police sources as saying the driver fell asleep while driving. Interior Minister Gabor Papp announced on Facebook that the driver had been arrested.

This is the worst bus accident in the country since the 2003 Siófok disaster, when a train collided with a bus carrying German tourists at a railway crossing, killing 33 people.

According to investigators, eleven people died at the scene, while another passenger died after being transported to the hospital.

Hungarian national ambulance services, which dispatched 14 ambulances to the scene, reported that their teams treated ten people with serious injuries and 37 with minor injuries.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that Warsaw would send an ambulance plane to Budapest following the incident.

Tusk said, “I have decided to send a special Polish aircraft to Hungary carrying representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and medical services,” adding that “all the injured will receive the necessary medical and consular assistance.”