A tourist bus with 50 passengers on board, many of them Norwegians, collided in a round-about in the Canary Islands early Tuesday morning. Several have been sent to a local hospital while the extent of injuries from what one passenger described as a “dramatic” accident was unclear.
“We still know very little,” Tonje Fossum of charter tour company Ving told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “The bus was on its way from the hotels to the airport with tourists who were leaving the island. But then it drove the wrong way in a round-about and landed in a flower bed.”
Of the 50 persons on board the bus that had picked up tourists at hotels on the island of Tenerife, 33 were Norwegian. They were traveling with various tour operators, including Ving.
Fossum said that local travel leaders were helping take care of the passengers. Ten of the Norwegians have reportedly been admitted to hospital and Ving was trying to assess the extent of their injuries while also organizing new return transport for those who missed their flights because of the accident.
One tourist told newspaper VG that the bus was rolling at a high speed just before the accident and he thinks the driver lost control. Ving told VG there were no fatalities but the father of a family from Sørlandet described the crash as “dramatic,” adding that the bus “was up on just two wheels” in the round-about and “everyone screamed,” especially the small children on board.
“I thought I was going to die,” he told VG. “Now I’m so glad that all of my children survived.”
newsinenglish.no staff
