A dozen people were killed and at least 10 injured when a Polish bus crashed in Hungary, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said on Sunday in a Facebook post. The injured have been taken to hospital in the northern Hungarian cities of Eger, Debrecen, Nyíregyháza and Miskolc, Hungary’s health minister, Dr Zsolt Hegedűs, said. Fourteen ambulance units were dispatched to the scene, Dr Hegedűs wrote in a Facebook post, adding that one critically injured had been treated in situ along with nine seriously injured and 37 with minor injuries. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said on the X platform on Sunday morning that Polish consular service were acting and that his ministry would provide further information in due course. The Polish embassy in Budapest has said up a special information hotline for relatives: +36 20 472 9502. Driver ‘fell asleep’ The bus ran into a ditch and tipped over at around 1 a.m. Sunday near the town of Mezőkeresztes in eastern Hungary, police said, adding that the bus was heading towards the city of Nyíregyháza on the highway when the accident happened. Hungarian state news agency MTI said there were 57 passengers and two drivers on the bus. "A Polish-registered bus travelling on the M3 highway towards Nyíregyháza... veered off the straight stretch of road into a ditch and overturned. Preliminary information suggests the driver likely fell asleep," local police said on their website. The police added they were taking the bus driver into custody. The bus had been traveling back to Poland’s southeastern Podkarpackie region from a pilgrimage to Bosnia and Herzegovina, regional authorities in the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszów said. They added that a crisis management team had been set up to deal with the emergency. Messages of condolence Parliamentary Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer, who is currently carrying out presidential duties until Hungary’s new president assumes office, expressed her condolences on social media on Sunday. "I was deeply saddened to learn of the tragedy involving the overturned Polish bus on the M3 highway, which claimed the lives of twelve people," she posted on Facebook. "I extend my sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wish a swift recovery to those who were injured," the post continued. "My thanks go to the professional emergency services and civilian volunteers who responded to the accident and did everything possible to save lives." Health Minister Hegedűs joined the interim president in conveying “sincere condolences and deepest sympathy to the families of the victims,” and wishing the injured a speedy recovery. “An unimaginable tragedy,” he wrote. “May the victims rest in peace.”
