Twelve dead, fifty injured in Bulgarian motorway pile-up

Twelve people died ‌in a motorway ​pile-up in eastern Bulgaria on Tuesday involving dozens of vehicles in thick fog, officials said. Police, firefighters and ‌ambulance crews rushed to the scene on the A1 road that links the capital Sofia with the eastern city of Burgas. Images on local media showed cars and ‌trucks piled up across six lanes of highway, many crushed, overturned, or veered off ‌to the side.

Briefing reporters at the site of the accident, General Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Lyubomir Nikolov, said that fog was the likely cause of the accident which started with a collision ⁠between a ​bus and a ⁠truck about 75 kilometres (47 miles) west of Burgas. Eleven people died at the scene and another in ⁠hospital, Healthcare Minister Katya Ivkova told reporters.

Another 50 people who were injured were taken to ​hospital, according to the interior ministry. Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Wednesday would ⁠be a day of mourning in Bulgaria.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was visiting Bulgaria on Tuesday ⁠but ​said she would cut her visit short. "I would like to express my deepest condolences and I would like to pay respects to the rescue teams," ⁠von der Leyen said. Radev described the accident as a "tragedy" in a statement and said that ⁠he had deployed ⁠aircraft to evacuate the wounded and planned to visit the scene, where initially people had been trapped in their vehicles.