Six Ukrainians were killed and at least 35 injured in a bus accident on the night of March 5 near the small village of Kasice, 360 kilometers southeast of the Polish capital Warsaw.
35 people were hospitalized in medical institutions in neighboring Polish cities.
The 55 passengers and two drivers of the bus are all Ukrainian citizens. The vehicle with Ukrainian plates was on a 20-hour trip from Poznan in Poland to Kherson in Ukraine.
The bus driver lost control of his vehicle, flew into a ditch and overturned, according to a statement on the website of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
The bus crashed into a fence and rolled off a viaduct between the cities of Jaroslav and Przemysl in the Kasice region while heading to the southern Polish border with Ukraine.
Many passengers were not wearing seat belts, Jankowski said. When the bus hit the fence, people were thrown around the cabin, resulting in multiple injuries to the head, spine, abdomen and limbs.
A firefighter told the media that 18 people who didn’t require hospitalization were taken to a nearby dormitory.
“Our activities have ended, but determining the causes that led to this accident will take a few more hours,” he said.
At the time of publication, a hundred Polish rescuers had already evacuated all the passengers from the overturned bus with the help of two helicopters. The firefighters had also put the overturned bus back on its wheels to allow the police and the prosecutor’s office to conduct an inspection.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed condolences to the families on Twitter on March 6.
“We are doing our best to provide assistance,” he wrote.
Ukrainian diplomats went to the scene of the accident to coordinate with local authorities and thanked Polish rescuers for their help, Oleg Nikolenko, the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine wrote on Twitter on March 6.
“Everyone is provided with the necessary medical and consular assistance. We are grateful to the Polish side for the prompt response,” Nikolenko wrote.
