BUDAPEST – 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 on Aug 16 that a survivor described as “unimaginable”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar said in a Facebook post on the morning of Aug 16 that the bus had run into a ditch and tipped over at around 1am.

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

The injured were taken to hospitals in four nearby cities.

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.

Tluczek pulled two people out from under the wreckage and then “clawed my way out of that vehicle with my hands”.

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

“When I looked back, it was like... Mother of Jesus... It is not possible; it is unimaginable to see what it looked like inside that bus,” she added.

The accident happened near the town of Mezokeresztes in eastern Hungary, the police said, on the way towards the city of Nyiregyhaza.

Pictures from the scene showed a badly damaged red bus lying on its side in a ditch by the motorway with windows smashed and belongings and suitcases scattered around.

“A Polish-registered bus... veered off the straight stretch of road into a ditch and overturned. Preliminary information suggests the driver likely fell asleep,” the police said on their website, adding that the driver was being taken into custody.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on social media platform X: “It is with deep sorrow that I received the tragic news of the Polish bus accident in Hungary, in which so many of our compatriots died.”

In July 2002, a tourist bus carrying Polish pilgrims flipped over at a roundabout near Lake Balaton in western Hungary, killing 20 people. REUTERS