At least 37 people have been killed in a “tragic” traffic collision between a bus and truck in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the Associated Press reported, citing fire department officials who attended the scene. The death toll had initially been put at 22.
A further 13 people were taken to hospitals near the city of Teófilo Otoni.
Authorities said the bus, which reportedly left São Paulo carrying 45 passengers, blew a tyre, causing the driver to lose control and crash into a lorry.
Another car then collided with the bus, but all three of its passengers survived, the fire department said. Reuters said the crash, which occurred at about 4am, resulted in the bus bursting into flames.
Pictures emerging from the scene showed a truck on top of a crushed car – its giant wheel embedded in the smaller vehicle’s roof – with Minas Gerais fire department saying the collision occurred on highway BR-116.
The photos showed the road strewn with twisted and scorched metal, patterned bus seats ripped from their moorings, and passenger blankets tangled in the wreckage.
Uniformed workers were pictured at the scene, with more victims of the crash still being removed, one official told AP. A firefighter said a crane was needed to access parts of the bus with more expected victims.
Romeu Zema, governor of Minas Gerais, said on X that he had ordered a “full mobilisation” to “assist victims and support their families in the tragic accident on BR-116, in Teófilo Otoni.”
Zema said security forces had been working since dawn to respond to the incident, and that he had made the aircraft of the governor’s military office available to rescue workers.
“My sincere condolences to the family and friends,” the governor said. “We are working to ensure that the families of the victims are welcomed so that they can face this tragedy in the most humane way possible on the eve of Christmas, a date so significant for everyone.”
Brazil had an estimated road traffic death rate of 15.7 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to data compiled by the UN, which is much higher, for example, than the rate of 8.8 deaths per 100,000 people in Argentina.
The country has announced plans to try to halve the number of fatalities on its road network by the end of the decade, which the ministry of transport says will save 86,000 lives between 2021 and 2030.
In September, a bus flipped while carrying the Coritiba Crocodiles – a professional American football team – to a match, killing three people.