Drone footage shows cars crushed between lorries in thick fog near Yambol, and the road has been closed in both directions in an incident involving over 50 vehicles.
Twelve people have been killed and 48 injured in pile-ups on both carriageways of a motorway in south-eastern Bulgaria, the authorities said on Tuesday.
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“The toll at this point is 48 injured,” Prime Minister Rumen Radev told reporters.
The crashes happened on Tuesday morning near the city of Yambol, on the Trakia motorway linking the capital Sofia with Burgas on the Black Sea. More than 50 cars and heavy vehicles were involved.
Drone footage released by Bulgarian broadcaster Nova shows a huge pile-up in thick fog, with lorries, vans and cars jammed across the carriageway. Fire engines and ambulances are lined up along the road as emergency workers in hi-vis jackets move between the wrecked vehicles. Closer shots, shown after a warning about sensitive footage, show several cars badly crushed between lorries while debris is scattered across the road.
The first emergency call came at about 7:10am local time (6.10am CET). Dense fog was the main factor Novinite reported, with one eyewitness putting visibility at about 30 metres.
“The real horror was inside the bus”
Survivors described the moment the vehicles piled into each other.
A man who was driving a car told Nova reporters that a lorry had crashed into them from the rear. "Terrifying! The red lorry slammed into us from behind. I could hear it coming, braking hard. I told my colleague, 'Hold on, we’re going to be hit!'" he said.
"It crashed into us and sent us flying into the crash barrier. We hit another car, and within seconds, as we were getting out, all those other cars crashed into each other."
A woman who was a passenger on a bus caught up in the crash told Nova that grain had poured in through the shattered windows.
"The real horror was inside the bus. Grain was falling on us from above, through the windows. All the windows were shattered, glass was raining down, and we were all piled on top of each other. Some had fallen, others were injured, and some were trapped," she said.
Todor Mishinev, head of Yambol traffic police, said rescuers had to cut through metal to free people trapped, including in tanker lorries.
Injured people were taken to hospitals in Yambol and the nearby city of Sliven. Several are in a serious or life-threatening condition.
Ministers dispatched to the scene as motorway stays closed
Radev cancelled his engagements in Varna because of the crashes, just after he had met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Bulgaria Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev sent Lyubomir Nikolov, the ministry’s acting chief secretary, and Deputy Interior Minister Kaloyan Kaloyanov to the scene. Health Minister Katya Ivkova was also travelling to the area and was due to give a press briefing at the Dr Ivan Seliminski Hospital in Sliven, according to Novinite.
The motorway has been closed in both directions between the Zimnitsa and Kabile junctions. Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency said the closure would last for some time because of the heavy vehicles involved and the investigation.
Bulgaria’s roads are ranked the most dangerous in the EU.