UPDATED: It happened again on Thursday: A tour bus driver failed to negotiate one of the sharp hairpin turns on Norway’s popular County Road 63, better known as Trollstigen in Romsdal. The bus got stuck, blocking traffic heading both up and down the mountainside.
The road, recently designated one of Norway’s especially scenic highways for tourists, is only open in the summer season. State broadcaster NRK reported that it was forced to close Thursday after the bus got hung up just before noon.
No cars were able to get past the bus and a specially outfitted tow-truck with a crane had to be called to attempt to free it. That led to “a mass of camping vans, cars and other buses getting caught in a queue both above and below the bus that blocked the road,” Ottar Rydjord, a motorist at the scene, told NRK.
Local road officials dispatched crews to inform drivers on both sides of the stuck bus what was happening. In the meantime, they had little choice but to simply enjoy the view from wherever they were while waiting for the bus to be freed. The bus was finally pulled off its perch and the road reopened late in the afternoon.
newsinenglish.no staff
