Seven people have been killed and 37 are injured following a bus crash in Mississippi early Saturday morning.
The accident happened when a commercial passenger bus traveling westbound left the roadway and overturned on Interstate 20 in Warren County, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said. The agency responded to the scene around 12.40am. Fourty-seven people were on the bus at the time of the incident.
Many of them were not wearing seatbelts, Warren County Coroner Doug L Huskey said in a phone call with The Independent. His office is working on identifying all of the victims, but would not be releasing identifying information until next of kin have been informed.
So far, he’s identified three males and two females, including a six-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl who were siblings. The children’s mother was on the bus with them at the time of the incident but survived, Huskey said. The boy was transported to a hospital where he died. The girl was declared deceased at the scene. All seven of the victims are from Latin America, including Guatemala.
Huskey said the preliminary manner of death for the individuals is blunt force trauma injuries.
In total, there were thirty-seven passengers transported to hospitals in Vicksburg and Jackson. Some of the injured people are in critical condition. Not all of the people on board the bus sustained injuries.
“Anytime you have people injured or killed, it’s tragic but when you have a situation like this where you have multiple fatalities and multiple injuries, it makes it even worse,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace told CNN affiliate WAPT.
Six passengers were pronounced dead at the scene while the seventh died at a hospital, the highway patrol said.
“This crash remains under investigation by the Mississippi Highway Patrol and the Commercial Transportation Enforcement Division,” the Mississippi Highway Patrol said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it would be sending a “go-team” to conduct a safety investigation into the crash, which occurred after the motor coach experienced a tire failure.
This is a developing story…
