Two people died and 33 were hurt when a bus run by the Serbian company Niš Express overturned on the A3 motorway in Croatia this morning, the Croatian health ministry said.
Six of the injured are seriously hurt and 27 have minor injuries. Both drivers are among the injured.
The crash happened at about 7.25am on the Zagreb-bound carriageway, just past the Ivanić Grad interchange. The bus was on the regular Niš–Zagreb route, carrying 33 passengers and two drivers.
Rescue and medical teams reached the scene quickly. The injured were taken to five hospitals and health centres.
The University Hospital Centre Zagreb said all the hospital services needed are ready. The psychiatric service at Dubrava Clinical Hospital is also on duty and is giving psychological help to the injured, director Ivica Lukšić said.
Relatives of the injured are travelling from Serbia to Zagreb.
A passenger who survived said in an interview that the two drivers swapped about 50–60km before the crash site. The second driver had been at the wheel for about 45 minutes when the bus hit the guardrail, slid and overturned. The passenger believes the driver fell asleep.
He was heading to Zagreb to catch an 11am flight to Germany. He missed the flight but carried on with his trip after being examined. He says he has no broken bones but is bruised all over, with injuries to his head and arm. Doctors ran full tests and treated his wounds.
After the bus overturned, he smashed windows to pull people out. Around him, people were crying and shouting for help.
The dead are two young women who were not sitting together. One was directly opposite him and the other was probably at the back of the bus. He says he heard they were travelling to a symposium, but he does not know where they were from.
Minutes after the crash, the man recorded a video for his family. Behind him, the bus lies on its side, and rescuers pull out injured people and give them first aid. In the video he says the bus overturned before Zagreb, that he lost his second phone and that he will be late.