TWELVE DEAD AFTER BUS CARRYING POLISH PILGRIMS OVERTURNS IN HUNGARY

Twelve people died after a bus carrying Polish pilgrims overturned on the M3 motorway in Hungary near the town of Mezőkeresztes at 1am local time. The bus was returning from a Catholic pilgrimage to Međugorje in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina and carried 57 passengers and two drivers. Local police said the bus "went off the straight road into a ditch and overturned", with early reports suggesting the driver had fallen asleep. The driver survived and was taken into custody. Poland's foreign ministry said virtually all passengers were transferred to hospitals in Eger, Debrecen and Miskolc, with 10 people in serious condition and 37 sustaining minor injuries.

The bus was operated by a company whose owner told Business Insider Polska that both drivers were experienced. The group of pilgrims came from Poland's south-eastern Podkarpackie region. Poland's president, Karol Nawrocki, said he had received "the tragic news of the accident involving a Polish bus in Hungary, in which so many of our compatriots perished" and expressed his condolences to families of the victims. Hungary's prime minister, Péter Magyar, expressed his "sincere condolences to the families of the victims" and thanked emergency services involved in the rescue operation.

The investigation will be led by prosecutors from the south-eastern Polish town of Krosno, according to the prosecutors' office. Poland's infrastructure minister, Dariusz Klimczak, said the general inspectorate of road transport would conduct enhanced checks on all buses and drivers' working hours. This incident follows a 2022 crash in Croatia in which 12 people died and 30 were injured when a bus carrying Polish pilgrims to Međugorje overturned.