CNN –
Italian authorities on Wednesday were investigating the cause of a horrific bus crash near Venice that killed at least 21 people, including two children.
An Italian fire department spokesman told CNN that authorities had not yet found the cause of Tuesday’s accident in Mestre, which was described as an “apocalyptic scene.”
RAI reported that 40-year-old bus driver Alberto Rizzotto was among the dead and 18 people were also injured.
Italy’s fire department said it would investigate whether the bus’s battery may have caused the fire to spread more quickly after it overheated.
According to the bus operator’s corporate website, it was an electric bus.
Claudia Greco/Portal
Flowers are seen Wednesday at the site where a tour bus fell from an overpass in Mestre, Italy.
Claudia Greco/Portal
Local police are on duty at the scene of the bus accident on Wednesday.
Provincial fire chief Mauro Lungo said “critical issues” arise when batteries overheat, CNN affiliate Sky TG24 reported Wednesday.
Lungo said concerns about the battery slowed Tuesday’s rescue operation. Meanwhile, the Venice public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the crash.
A representative of the public prosecutor’s office told CNN that the chief prosecutor of the city of Venice, Bruno Cherchi, is leading the investigation into the incident in Mestre.
Video recently submitted to investigators is being examined to determine whether other vehicles were involved in the incident or whether the driver had any health problems, the spokesman said.
The bus was traveling from Venice to nearby Marghera and was “full of people coming home from work,” Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro told state press RAI.
Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images
Emergency services are on site after a bus accident near Venice.
Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images
The Italian fire brigade will investigate whether the bus’s electric battery played a role in the incident.
“It went completely off the road, it flew off the bridge. It was a bus; it was a highway. We mourn,” he added. Brugnaro described the scene as “apocalyptic” in a post on Facebook.
The accident occurred on the overpass of a road leading from Mestre to Marghera and the A4 motorway, Italian media skytg24 reported.
According to skytg24, for reasons that are still unclear, the bus broke through a wall of the overpass and fell between a warehouse and the tracks of the Mestre train station below.
Massimo Fiorese, the head of the company that operates the bus, said he had seen footage of the moments before the accident.
Video showed the single-decker bus slowing and appearing to “almost stop” before crashing through the guardrail and overturning, he told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, according to Portal.
On Wednesday morning, the Italian Senate, the upper house of parliament, held a minute’s silence for the victims of the crash, according to its feed on X.
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The country’s president and prime minister expressed their condolences after the accident, as did other world leaders.
“I express my personal condolences and those of the government on the serious accident that occurred in Mestre. “Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on X.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X: “Tonight our thoughts are with the Italian people, with the families and relatives of the victims of the terrible tragedy in Venice.”
“I am deeply saddened by the terrible bus accident in Mestre this evening. I extend my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims at this sad time. I am close to you,” wrote European Council President Charles Michel on X.