World

Twelve killed and at least 10 injured in Polish bus crash in Hungary

August 17, 2026 11:29 am

[Source: Reuters]

A dozen people were killed and at least 10 seriously injured after a Polish bus carrying 57 pilgrims veered off a ​motorway in eastern Hungary, in an accident that a survivor described as “unimaginable”.

Hungarian Prime ‌Minister Peter Magyar said on Sunday in a Facebook post that the bus had run into a ditch and tipped over, at around 1 a.m..

The bus, which also had two drivers on board, was returning to Poland ​from a shrine to the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in southeastern Bosnia.

The injured were ​taken to hospitals in four nearby cities.

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Crash survivor Helena Tluczek, from Lubenia, told ⁠Reuters from her hospital bed that she was on the phone with a friend back ​in Poland when the bus suddenly tipped over, and rolled.

She suffered broken ribs and injuries to ​her shoulder and spine, and also hit her head, but remembered some of what had happened.

“All the seats were ripped out. People were under the seats; everyone was screaming for help,” she said. She pulled two people ​out from under the wreckage and then “clawed my way out of that vehicle with my ​hands”.

Tluczek managed to pull her sister out of the bus before collapsing.