Twelve people were killed and at least 10 seriously injured when a Polish-registered bus carrying 57 Catholic pilgrims veered off a motorway in eastern Hungary in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The bus, which also had two drivers on board, was returning to Poland from the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in southeastern Bosnia when it ran into a ditch and overturned near the town of Mezokeresztes at around 1 a.m. local time. Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar confirmed the accident in a Facebook post, saying the bus had tipped over after leaving the straight stretch of road.
Driver Taken Into Custody
Hungarian police said preliminary information suggested the driver likely fell asleep at the wheel. The driver was being taken into custody as authorities launched an investigation into the cause of the crash. The injured were transported to hospitals in four nearby cities, with at least 10 reported in serious condition.
Survivor Helena Tluczek, from the village of Lubenia in southeastern Poland, described the scene from her hospital bed. She told Reuters she had been on the phone with a friend back in Poland when the bus suddenly tipped over and rolled. Suffering broken ribs, shoulder and spine injuries, and a head wound, Tluczek still managed to pull two people from under the wreckage before crawling out with her hands.
“All the seats were ripped out. People were under the seats; everyone was screaming for help,” she said. “When I looked back, it was like … Mother of Jesus… It is not possible; it is unimaginable to see what it looked like inside that bus.”
Tluczek managed to pull her sister out of the bus before collapsing at the scene.
Poland Mourns
Polish President Karol Nawrocki expressed his condolences on X, writing: “It is with deep sorrow that I received the tragic news of the Polish bus accident in Hungary, in which so many of our compatriots died.”
Photographs from the scene showed a badly damaged red bus lying on its side in a ditch by the motorway, with windows smashed and passengers’ belongings and suitcases scattered across the roadside. Emergency workers from Hungary, including helicopter teams, responded to the crash site.
The tragedy echoes a similar incident in July 2002, when a tourist bus carrying Polish pilgrims flipped over at a roundabout near Lake Balaton in western Hungary, killing 20 people. Road safety experts have long raised concerns about long-distance coach travel on European motorways, particularly on overnight routes where driver fatigue remains a leading cause of accidents.
Sources: Reuters; The Guardian; U.S. News & World Report; Magyar Peter Facebook
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