Venice bus crash: ‘Ghastly’ accident leaves unanswered questions as tourist city mourns ‘unbearable tragedy’
We are standing on the side of a flyover, looking over the edge, and it is a fearful sight.
Behind us, the traffic is pounding past, slowing slightly to take in the scene of northern Italy’s worst road accident.
And ahead of us is the reason why so many people perished here, just a couple of miles from the tourist streets and beautiful canals of Venice.
Pic: AP
A gap – a nothingness where there should be something.
To be precise, there should be two lines of metal guardrails here, installed to stop a vehicle falling off the side in the case of an accident.
But instead, all you can see are remnants of a ghastly accident.
Fragments of toughened glass, the lingering smell of burning, and twisted, broken lengths of metal where the guardrail should be.
Bus ‘violently’ veered
A little further down the hard shoulder, the guardrail is intact – and it is clearly old and corroded.
It’s held in place by regular supports built into the surface; where the crash happened, those supports have either been sliced off, or have simply been ripped out.
What we know is that the bus veered violently to the right. What we don’t know is why.
CCTV footage shows the bus driving along, briefly passing out of sight behind another vehicle, and then appearing in shot as it falls from the side of the road.
The driver is said to have been ‘experienced and respected’
But when I looked at the road surface, there was no sign of a skid mark; no indication that the driver had hit the brakes to try to slow the vehicle.
A piece of paper, taped to a lamppost, declares that the side of the road is now subject to criminal investigation, but the prosecutors remain wholly unsure what happened.
Did the driver, described as experienced and respected, suffer a catastrophic health problem, for instance?
Or was there a mechanical problem with the vehicle?
Just another grubby flyover
How could something have gone so extraordinarily wrong, here on a flyover that looks just like a thousand other grubby flyovers that we’ve all seen?
Standing here, it is a horrible sight, because you can see exactly what happened – the point where the bus careered off the road, smashed through the barriers and plunged around 50 feet to the road below, where it caught fire.
Pic: AP
We drive down to that point. There is still an acrid smell in the air, and the road is discoloured.
Smashed glass litters the roadside and, yards from where the bus crashed down, you can see where people have been sleeping rough.
There is a concrete wall on the far side, dividing the road from the train station.
A ‘gruesome’ tale that leaves unanswered questions
The bus brushed against that wall on its way down, before smashing into the road, killing so many.
It is a gruesome tale, and, standing here now, with lorries already passing by regularly, it feels extraordinary that the traffic is already back using the flyover, and the road below it.
This is, after all, officially a crime scene and Venice is dealing with an extraordinary trauma.
A woman passes us by, carrying flowers that she leaves on the side of the road, adding to a small collection.
She is, she says, just an ordinary Venetian who wanted to pay her respects.
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Italy coach crash kills at least 21
“I am sad, upset,” she said, as another lorry pounds past, drowning out her sadness.
Some of the stories are unbearably sad.
A newborn baby killed. A couple from Croatia who had only been married for 20 days – the wife dead, the husband badly injured in hospital.
I meet Michele Di Bari, Venice’s chief of police.
He called the accident “a moment of great disturbance, of great pain and great suffering, because Venice is the city of the world.
“Tourists come here to admire the beauty and experience the serenity of a wonderful and extraordinary place.
Pic: AP
“This is a great loss, a great tragedy, an unexpected, sudden event that shakes every human soul.
“When I arrived on the scene, I couldn’t help but be very upset, because there was an apocalyptic scene before my eyes, an enormous tragedy that the community will struggle to come to terms with.”
On the motorway, the traffic keeps moving, but Italy cannot escape the shadow of this crash, the spectre of tourists dying a horrendous death, and all the questions.
The country will fill in the gap next to the motorway, replace the barriers, repair the road.
But the questions will linger – how could this possibly have happened, and how can the nation be sure it won’t happen again?
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party will get the biggest vote share in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections, according to exit polls.
As polls closed on the first round of voting on Sunday, National Rally had a strong lead at 33%, followed by the left-wing New Popular Front coalition on 28.5%.
President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party are polling third with an estimated 22%.
Addressing supporters in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, Ms Le Pen said: “For the moment nothing is won, and the second round will determine the outcome.”
She warned voters to “be careful” in the coming days, and urged them to “mobilise” ahead of the second round on 7 July.
The result is almost double the 18% National Rally achieved in the 2022 elections and puts them in good stead to become the largest party in France’s lower house.
Supporters of Marine Le Pen, French far-right leader and far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally – RN) party candidate, celebrate after partial results in the first round of the early French parliamentary elections, in Henin-Beaumont, France
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Who are National Rally?
France has a semi-presidential system – these elections are for the 577 seats in the National Assembly.
Mr Macron is the president and was elected in a separate presidential vote.
The system means there is both a president and prime minister – who have separate powers.
Mr Macron called an early parliamentary election after his Renaissance party was decimated by Ms Le Pen’s anti-immigration one in the European elections.
Her 29-year-old protégé and party leader Jordan Bardella has enjoyed a spike in popularity, particularly among younger voters on TikTok, amid increasing discontent with Mr Macron.
Jordan Bardella, President of the French far-right Rassemblement National. Pic: Reuters
He told supporters in Paris on Sunday evening: “Three weeks after the European elections the French people have given a verdict and they have confirmed their clear hopes for change.
“This is giving us hope throughout the country.”
He warned of the “dangers” of the second-place left-wing coalition and said its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon could put France in “existential peril”.
Mr Bardella therefore urged his supporters to rally ahead of the next vote and said “victory is possible” on 7 July.
Although the two-round vote means the final result may not be totally clear until next week, if National Rally ends up as the largest party, Mr Macron would be compelled to make him prime minister.
The French president and prime minister have been from different political parties only three times in its history.
A new political reality has been revealed in France, it has a new face and a new name – 28-year-old Jordan Bardella.
Frontman of the hard-right, he has helped propel National Rally to a clear-cut lead in the first round of parliamentary elections.
Bardella, the party’s choice for prime minister, stands on the brink of power if National Rally secures a majority in the second round of voting.
“I want to tell our supporters to mobilise so that they carry out a final effort next Sunday – next Sunday’s vote will be one of the most important in the history of modern France,” he said.
With roots in the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, National Rally has been re-engineered by Marine Le Pen as she has worked to make it electable – and acceptable – to the public.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella campaigning for the National Rally in June. Pic: AP
A key part of that scheme rests with Le Pen’s fresh-faced prodigy. Bardella told the media that a National Rally government would respect the country’s traditional republican values.
“I will always be the guarantor of your rights and freedoms and our republican values which unite us all. I promise you freedom, equality and fraternity,” he said.
They were challenged from the left by the New Popular Front, a hastily organised alliance of socialists, communists, greens and hard-left grouping France Unbowed.
Early results suggest they have finished a strong second, around 28% of the vote.
There is no doubt about losers here. Emmanuel Macron‘s centrist coalition, Ensemble, performed poorly, gaining just 21% of the vote.
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Extreme right is at ‘gates of power’
Now a case of damage control
When he called this snap election, Macron was taking a gamble the drubbing his alliance received in recent European elections would not be repeated. He was wrong.
Macron’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal, said it’s now a case of damage control: “Our goal is clear, we must stop the right from gaining an absolute majority in the first round.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Read more
Who are National Rally?
Macron calls snap French election
Profile of National Rally leader Bardella
What happens next? Well, we will see a feverish week of campaigning as those candidates who have entered the final round seek to cement their advantage.
In constituencies where three people advance into the second round, parties will engage in frantic horse-trading to give their candidate the advantage.
Protesters against National Rally clamber on to the statue at the Republique Plaza in Paris on Sunday
Protesters and police clash
The country’s new political reality is also a moment of instability – both politically and on the streets.
After the results were announced, protesters erected barricades and broke windows in cities around the country.
Police responded with tear gas and baton charges.
The hard-right now have the national assembly within their grasp – but the implications of their success are unpredictable.
The search for Jay Slater in an area of Tenerife has been called off, police have said, nearly two weeks after his disappearance.
The British teenager, from Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn in Lancashire, has been missing in Tenerife since 17 June, when he vanished the morning after a rave.
The Civil Guard called for volunteers to join a new search in the Masca area – near his last-known location – on Saturday.
It has now confirmed to Sky News that the search has ended. Police are keeping the investigation open and could yet open up searches in the south of the island, but have not provided an update.
A handful of volunteers turned up to help rescue teams on Saturday, forming a total group of 30 to 40 people scouring a huge area of rugged and hilly terrain.
The Los Carrizales ravine where Jay Slater was being searched for. Pic: Reuters
Mr Slater, 19, had been on holiday with friends on the Spanish island and was last pictured at Papayago, a nightclub hosting the end of the NRG festival, late on 16 June.
After the event ended, he got in a car travelling to a small Airbnb in Masca with two men, who police said on Saturday are “not relevant” to the case.
His last known location was the Rural de Teno Park in the north of the island – which is about an 11-hour walk from his accommodation.
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‘I just want him back’
A local cafe owner told Sky News he tried to catch a bus back to Los Cristianos, where he was staying.
Ofelia Medina Hernandez said she spoke to the teenager at 8am on 17 June, telling him a bus was due at 10am – but he set off walking and she said she later drove past him “walking fast”.
A missing persons poster for Jay Slater in Tenerife
The apprentice bricklayer called a friend holidaying with him at around 8.30am on 17 June and said he was going to walk back after missing the bus.
He also told his friend he was lost and in need of water, with only 1% charge on his phone.
Read more:
Jay Slater’s family welcomes TikToker in search
Teen’s disappearance in Tenerife shrouded in speculation
On Friday, Mr Slater’s friend Brad Hargreaves told ITV’s This Morning he had been on a video call with him before his disappearance when he heard him go off the road.
He said he could see his friend’s feet “sliding” down the hill and hear he was walking on gravel.
Meanwhile, Mr Slater’s family shared a blurry image of what they believe could be the missing teenager captured on CCTV in a nearby town 10 hours after he was first reported missing.
Mr Slater’s family shared a blurry image of what they believe could be the missing teenager
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Local police and the Civil Guard, along with Mr Slater’s family, have been involved in the search.
Since his disappearance, rumours and conspiracy theories have emerged amid online speculation on social media.
Some social media sleuths have even travelled to Tenerife to try and find him.
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