39 dead in Italy as bus plunges off viaduct

Thirty-nine people were killed and around 10 injured when a bus plunged off a viaduct in southern Italy in what Prime Minister Enrico Letta described yesterday as a huge tragedy.

Initial reports suggested that the coach was travelling at speed and had hit four or five cars before crashing over the roadside barriers on a stretch of road near Monteforte Irpino, east of Naples, on Sunday night. There were around 50 people on board, including many children.

It was one of the worst road accidents in Italy’s history, and follows a high- speed train crash in the Spanish pilgrimage town of Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday which killed 79 people.