Italian authorities are investigating the case on Wednesday accident of an electric bus carrying foreign tourists an accident occurred on the outskirts of Venice in which 21 people died, including four Romanians, and another 15 people were injured, Reuters reports. According to Ansa, the judicial authorities are examining two main hypotheses regarding the causes of the tragedy: a risky maneuver involving another bus and old handrails, or the illness of the driver of the car who failed to control the vehicle.

An electric bus broke a handrail and fell from a railway bridge in the Mestre district on Tuesday, falling more than 10 meters into the void.

All 21 victims of the tragedy have been identified, the local representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Prefect of Venice Michele Di Bari, said on Wednesday evening.

Among them are nine citizens of Ukraine, four Romanians, three Germans, two Portuguese, one Croatian, one South African and an Italian, Di Bari told the Italian public broadcaster Rai News.

The bus was returning tourists to a campsite near Marghera after a day in Venice.

The accident happened shortly before 20:00. (1800 GMT) on the direct and usually very busy road that connects Mestre to the historic center of Venice and passes the railway.

“We assume that the driver was injured,” Veneto regional president Luca Zaia told Rtl 102.5 radio.

According to him, the testimony of eyewitnesses and recordings of video surveillance cameras can provide additional clues.

However, “the footage (of the accident), which also appeared in the national media, shows the need for a full investigation,” Di Bari said, adding that authorities were working to recover the car’s black box.

Among those injured in the accident were four Ukrainians, two Spaniards, two Austrians, a German, a Croat and a Frenchman, Di Bari said on Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening, Ansa wrote that 13 of the 15 hospitalized have been identified: five citizens of Ukraine, four Germans, two Spaniards, one Croat and one French. The last two victims, who are still under investigation, will be citizens of Ukraine and Germany.

The bus was moving slowly before it fell off the bridge

People living nearby said they heard a loud bang and rushed to the scene to try to help.

“There was a woman who spoke English and cried. When I was taking her out, she said, “Take my daughter, take her,” Nigerian-born Godstim Erheneden told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“She was a small child, I think she was two years old. She was unconscious and I think she was dead. I’m very upset, she’s the same age as my son,” he added.

Checking the number plates showed that the bus was an electric vehicle of a Chinese manufacturer. Firefighters said Wednesday that the remains of the bus were still being examined because of a fire hazard from its batteries.

The head of the company that operated the bus, Massimo Fiorese, told Corriere della Sera that he had seen a video recording of the moments before the accident.

He said it showed the single-decker bus slowing down and appearing “almost stationary” when it hit the guardrail and fell.

“I think the driver was taken because I can’t explain it any other way,” Fiorese said, adding that the driver had started his shift less than two hours before the crash.

Images from the crash site showed that the crossing was equipped with old, relatively thin metal railings, rather than the newer, stronger concrete options.

“There are no signs of braking, no contact with other vehicles,” the head of the Vientiane prosecutor’s office said, according to ANSA.

Witnesses rule out that the broken bus was traveling fast.

The average age of the victims is very low. The list of the dead includes a child only one and a half years old – doctors could not determine the exact age – and a girl 11-12 years old. Two young women aged 28 and one aged 30 became other ruined lives.

Read also:

VIDEO The moment when the carriage falls from the bridge and catches fire, on the outskirts of Venice, was captured by a surveillance camera