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A BUS SWERVED off a major road and crashed in Croatia early this morning, killing 10 people and injuring at least 45 others, some of them seriously, officials said.
The crash happened near the town of Slavonski Brod on the highway between the capital, Zagreb, and the Serbian border at around 6am local time.
Photos from the scene showed the bus on its side in the grass near the edge of the road.
Firefighters and rescuers could be seen around the vehicle, while traffic on the highway was halted.
Police said the bus had Kosovo licence plates and was on a regular route from Germany to the Kosovan capital, Pristina, which is located south of Serbia.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
Officials said the bus was carrying 67 passengers, including children, and two drivers.
Local police chief Franjo Galic described the crash as “one of the worst accidents I have ever seen”.
The 45 casualties were taken to hospital in Slavonski Brod. Hospital chief Josip Samardzic said eight people were seriously hurt.
Health Minister Vili Baros later said 15 of the passengers were minors and that one girl had been seriously injured.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic expressed “sadness and grief” and extended his condolences to the relatives of those who died in the crash and the people of Kosovo.
“We hope the injured will recover,” he tweeted.
Kosovo sent its interior minister to Croatia, as top officials offered condolences to the families of the victims and expressed hope for the swift recovery of the injured.
President Vjosa Osmani, who is in Tokyo for the Olympic Games, spoke of her sorrow in a message on Facebook.
“With our heart and in spirit, we are close to the families who lost their loved ones in this tragedy,” she said. “It is an indescribable pain and a great loss.”
The highway where the crash happened is a key traffic artery through Croatia which is busy over the summer because of tourism and foreign workers travelling home from Western Europe.
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Good job it was a secure system so…..
Anyway, it sounds like the HSE – not for the first time – will learn lessons. Going forwards like
@Gerry Kelly: Emergency services in the EU use the TETRA communications system with the TEA2 stream cypher to encrypt voice and data communications,
TEA2 is a high grade encryption cypher vastly more secure than civilian TETRA radios (TEA1) sold/used in the EU. Although the algorithm used in TEA2 was never published, a cybersecurity firm in the Netherlands managed to extract the code and analyse it.
They estimated it would take 535 million years to crack it.
@David Jordan: Are there any alternative solutions, like satellite phones?
@Athena: they could go back to normal vhf/uhv radios in emergency situations – these radios always work. Only downside is it’s not encrypted so everyone with a scanner or ham radio can listen to it as well
I’m not surprised the system went down. Internet and mobile data was gone the day after the storm.
Galway bay fm was down too so the only info we had was from radio one and they didn’t seem to think the storm was too bad at that stage!
All weekend Everyone in Athenry town had to park in their cars on the highest part of the ring road (now named signal hill) to get a little bit of mobile data signal!
I cannot understand why the ARMY has not been called in to help.
@Anne Collins: unfortunately anne the defence forces are completely running on skeleton staffing levels…..they have always been the first to jump in and assist but they just don’t have the staff anymore
@Anne Collins:
Lessons will be learned folks……its the motto of the HSE at this stage
Before anything gets better worse is going to come. It is all written in the book of life. I highly recommend anyone to take out the holy bible and start reading it. The reason the Earth is falling is because of sin. People are disobedient to the truth and must become obedient. Simple as that.
@Martin Monaghan: cop on fella with your fairy tales
@Martin Monaghan: I can’t read it, it’s still dark here in the west.
I think Malta would have no issue invading Ireland at this stage
10 4 Roger that
You can see the Unpreparedness and it’s Not a pretty sight. Imagine Nuclear War…Iodine tablets Out of date and Water you wouldn’t want to feed a cat. Not to mention…there are NO Underground places for the people to hold out for a time. Other major countries are Way ahead of this. Meanwhile we play with people’s and future people’s lives. Sigh!
@Mick Hanna: Is everything OK, Mick?
Still a Third World Country.
How awful, glad I’m OK and weathered the storm with relative ease :)
HSE is involved. No wonder it T1TS UP. Sure nobody to blame and fire more money at it. My money, that I hand over each paycheck.
The HSE has more pressing issues to deal with, like the war on vapes, which I wholeheartedly support
have your say