Posted on 12/20/17
| News Source: ABC News
At least 12 people were killed, including five Americans, after the bus they were riding in Tuesday was involved in a crash in Mexico, an official familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
The passengers involved in the crash had been traveling on two Royal Caribbean cruise ships, a spokesman for the cruise line told ABC News.
Four of the other fatalities were Canadian, two were Swedes, and one was Mexican, the official.
One of the fatalities was a minor, according to the Quintana Roo government. The minor's nationality is not yet known.
The tour bus crashed in the southeastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday shortly before 10 a.m. local time, according to a spokesperson for the attorney general's office in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
The passengers aboard the bus were American, Italian, Swedish and Brazilian, according to a statement from the Costa Maya port, which is near the crash site. The bus belonged to the port and crashed at kilometer 5 of the Mahahual-Cafetal highway, the statement said. Emergency services and medics arrived on the scene immediately after the crash, the state government said in a statement.
Multiple people were injured and transferred to four hospitals, and five of those passengers have been discharged, according to the statement. Representatives from the port, the government and insurance companies have been dispatched to each hospital to ensure that "all actors involved are being helped, supported and informed," the statement said.
The bus was seen overturned on its side, and multiple passengers were seen lying and standing on the side of the road in video filmed at the scene of the crash.
Vítor Maciel Fontes Jacques, 32, from Brazil, was traveling with his wife and five family members when the bus crashed. He suffered a broken clavicle in the accident while his sister-in-law suffered a head injury that required surgery, he said.
"The bus somehow went down the side of the road," Fontes Jacques said. "Then the driver pushed it over and it started flipping over. And then the bus flipped on its side." Read more at ABC News