At least 52 people died on Monday when a bus carrying more than 70 passengers plunged into a ravine at the northern entrance to Guatemala City, according to the latest toll from authorities, a tragedy for which the government declared “national mourning.” The bus fell, for reasons under investigation, from a road next to the Belice Bridge, the main access to the capital from the country’s north and northeast regions and was destroyed with its wheels up amid vegetation and a sewage river.
The capital’s Emergency Administration coordinator, Héctor Flores, specified that 52 bodies were recovered, the last being the bus driver, who was extracted with great difficulty from the twisted metal. The bodies were piled in a makeshift morgue in a community hall near the accident site, where several anxious relatives of the victims gathered.
Through tears, Rosa López, 48, told journalists that four of her nephews were traveling on the bus. “When we heard about the accident on the news, we came here (to the morgue),” she recounted. The injured passengers, several in serious condition, were transferred to hospitals near the accident site, which occurred very early in the morning.
National Mourning
According to authorities, the bus was covering the route from the town of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán (northeast) to Guatemala City. Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arévalo expressed his dismay and solidarity with the victims’ families and declared “national mourning.”
“Today is a difficult day for the Guatemalan family. The Belice bridge tragedy is a national pain,” stated Arévalo, who added that it is a situation that “tears the nation apart.” Marbelin Ortiz, a 40-year-old waitress living in a neighborhood near the accident site, was checking if any of her acquaintances were among the victims: “It has been a very great, very painful tragedy,” she told reporters.
Members of the fire department, police, and Red Cross participated in the extensive rescue operation, which lasted about six hours. Luis Quintanilla, a Volunteer Firefighters rescuer, explained that rescue work was complicated because part of it had to be done underwater, causing several of his colleagues to suffer hypothermia. Arévalo ordered army and civil protection personnel to attend to the situation.
Investigation Ongoing
The driver apparently lost control of the bus, collided with several small cars, broke through a metal barrier, and fell into a ravine approximately 20 meters deep, according to Carlos Hernández of the Municipal Firefighters. Communications Minister Miguel Ángel Díaz commented that initial investigations determined the bus was more than three decades old but had a valid license to operate.
“It’s a bus with more than 30 years of service, it’s a 1995 model,” the official specified at a press conference. Díaz indicated that an investigation had begun into the causes of the fatal accident and whether the vehicle was carrying more than its capacity.
“There has been speculation that it was overloaded, however, that is something yet to be determined. We again lament this great loss of human life, we still cannot make advance judgments about what caused the accident,” he specified. The Prosecutor’s Office said it had opened an investigation to “elucidate the truth of the facts.”
In 2013, a bus fell into a ravine in Chimaltenango (west) resulting in about fifty deaths, and in 2008, a bus accident left 48 dead in the southeast of the country.
