Honeymoon couple tied the knot three weeks before Venice bus crash

Tragedy for honeymoon couple who tied the knot just three weeks before Venice bus crash which claimed the bride’s life along with 20 other people

• The coach veered off the road and fell close to railway lines at around 7.45pm
• Rescuers pulled 19 bodies from the wreckage while a further two died in hospital

A pregnant bride on her honeymoon was among those killed when a bus packed with tourists overturned after plunging from an Italian bridge.

Antonela Perkovic was among 21 people killed in the tragedy that also saw a newborn baby and two other children among the victims, with another 15 people injured.

The tourist bus broke through a guardrail and plunged 30 feet off a bridge in Venice last night.

Antonela’s husband Marko Bakovic survived the crash which happened in the city of Mestre as the bus was taking day trippers back to a campsite from nearby Venice.

The couple tied the knot in their home town of Split on the Croatian coast three weeks ago and were on an extended honeymoon.

Pregnant bride Antonela Perkovic was killed in the bus crash. She was on her honeymoon with husband Marko Bakovic, who survived the tragedy. Pictured: The couple together

Emergency crew members work at the scene after a bus accident near Venice on October 3

Officials at the Croatian Foreign Ministry confirmed a woman had been killed and a man was being treated in hospital, but details of their recent wedding emerged in local media.

On the couple’s respective Facebook pages pictures from their recent wedding could be seen with friends congratulating them on their wedding.

In one picture Marko could be seen with his hands protectively around his then fiancés abdomen as Croatian media reported she was heavily pregnant.

Officials said an investigation into multiple traffic manslaughter had been opened as per Italian legal protocol.

Meanwhile, two migrants were hailed as heroes after they rushed to save tourists trapped in the burning bus.

Boubakar Toure, 27, from Gambia, and Godstime Erheneden, 30, were cooking dinner when the bus fell from the bridge.

Mr Erneheden, a welder, told The Telegraph: ‘There was a woman speaking in English, she was crying and saying: “Take my daughter, take my daughter.”

‘She was a little girl, I think about two years old. She was unconscious and I feared she might be dead.

It came as shocking CCTV footage has shown the fatal moment the bus fell.

Investigators believe the driver of the coach – identified as 40-year-old Italian Alberto Rizzotto – had a ‘medical episode’, causing the electric vehicle to veer off the road.

The driver of the bus that crashed in Venice last night may have had a ‘medical episode’ that led to the deaths of 21 people including children, investigators believe 

Officials said the vehicle (pictured from an overpass above) veered off the road and fell 98 feet (30 metres) onto electricity lines before catching fire at around 7.45pm local time on Tuesday evening in the Mestre district – connected to Venice by a bridge

Emergency service personnel are seen lifting the bus with cranes before taking it away. Alberto Rizzotto, 40, has been identified as the driver of the battery powered vehicle and was among those killed when it plunged 30 feet off a bridge and burst into flames

The clip shows the bus had almost come to a stop on the busy motorway when it toppled sideways off the overpass and landed on its roof on another road below, causing the coach’s batteries to catch fire at around 7.45pm.

By Wednesday morning, 19 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage while a further two people died in hospital. Italy’s ANSA news agency, quoting emergency services, said a baby and a 12-year-old were killed. Officials have said as many as 18 people were injured, five of whom are in a critical condition.

Miraculously, Italian reports said another newborn baby survived the crash. Firefighters are understood to have found him cradled in his parent’s arms. A four-year-old girl is also reported to have survived, but suffered ‘deep’ burns.

Investigators are already pouring over the footage from nearby traffic cameras which captured the crash unfolding to determine the cause of what has been described by Venice’s mayor as a ‘huge tragedy’.

One possible explanation being investigated is that the Rizzotto had a ‘medical episode’, officials said, with one noting that the road was ‘straight and there were no bends’ and that footage appeared to show the bus ‘drifting’ towards the guardrail.

Images show crowds of emergency services attending the crash which has so far seen around 21 people dead, including two children. Nineteen died at the scene and two more in hospital

A bunch of flowers are seen placed at the scene of the bus crash in Mestre on Wednesday

Police officers inspect the stretch of road where the bus cashed through the guardrail

Alberto Rizzotto (pictured), 40, has been identified as the driver of the battery powered vehicle and was among those killed when it plunged 30 feet off the bridge on Tuesday

Venice police chief Marco Agostini told local media: ‘There appears to be no brake marks on the asphalt so the theory of a medical episode is a possibility.’

Venice’s chief proscutor Bruno Cherchi said autopsies would be carried out on the driver and the victims and a full examination of the wreckage would be carried out.

He added: ‘At this moment we have no definitive explanation but there are several theories and we hope to have a clearer picture by the end of the day.’

There was also speculation in Italian media that ‘another vehicle’ had possibly hit the bus causing it to lose control and it had then raced away.

The conditions of the motorway safety barrier are also being investigated, according to La Stampa, with photos showing the safety rail was old and rusty.

Criminal lawyer Domenico Musicco, who runs a non-profit organisation that works with victims of road accidents, bemoaned the fact that the guardrail ‘appears to be of an old type and in any case totally unsuitable for guaranteeing safety on a dangerous stretch of road like that.

‘Ten years after the Avellino tragedy,’ he said, ‘where forty people died on board a bus that crashed from the Acqualonga viaduct, we find ourselves once again mourning over twenty deaths due to old and inadequate protections.’

Tiredness was unlikely to be a factor as Rizzotto – whose body was among those pulled from the wreckage – had only just started his shift, officials said.

Firefighters said the bus caught fire after careering off a bridge straddling a railway line and linking the Mestre and Marghera districts of Venice in northern Italy.

Emergency workers spent hours removing the bodies, working overnight on the charred remains of the vehicle, which they finally removed from the scene the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Mauro Luongo, commander of the Venice firefighters team, said: ‘The people in the bus found themselves surrounded by flames. ‘The scene we found was terrible. It took about one hour to extract some of the bodies.’

The fire chief said the cause of the crash was not known, but ‘in the impact the electric batteries of the bus caught fire’. Firefighters said the bus was electric, despite the Italian interior minister earlier saying it ran on methane.

Rizzotto, originally from Conegliano, has been described by his boss as a ‘good’ driver with five or six years experience.

Spekaing to Corriere Della Sera, Massimo Fiorese – CEO of La Linea which owned and operated the coach – said Rizzotto ‘was a person with proven experience, very good, a good person. [Rizzotto] had been working with us since 2014.’

The CEO pointed to the CCTV footage of the coach before it fell off the bridge, which shows it slowed down and had almost come to a stop when it fell.

‘In the video you can see that the bus is almost at a standstill, the guardrail is thin, it is not one of the most modern and structured ones, and the bus weighed a lot because it was an electric one. The impact was fatal,’ he said.

‘I think the driver had an illness, because otherwise I can’t explain it.’

Meanwhile, Venice municipal transport councillor Renato Boraso revealed a 6 million euro project to renovate the bridge and guardrail had recently been approved and might have prevented the 13 tonne vehicle falling. 

Coffins are seen being prepared for those who were killed in the fatal bus crash on Tuesday

Forty ambulances were sent to the scene and the railway line to Venice was closed temporarily before being reopened

Italian firefighters are seen working at the scene of the crash as the bus is lifted by cranes to be taken away on the back of a emergency service truck

Firefighters and rescue personnel attended the scene after the coach crashed and caught fire 

The coach veered off the road and fell close to railway lines in the district of Mestre – connected to Venice by a bridge

Nearby Hospitals went into ’emergency mode’ and an urgent appeal for blood donors was issued

Rescue personnel attended the scene after the coach crashed off an overpass in Mestre 

Firefighters are at work amid Fire brigade vehicles at the scene of a crashed bus

Police officers are seen in front of the overpass where a coach crashed near Venice 

A firefighter is pictured at work near the coach after it crashed off an overpass near Venice

Pictured: A view of the motorway the bus fell from

The coach had been rented by 40 tourists and was transporting them back from Venice’s main island to their campsite in the Mestre district when it crashed.

Luca Zaia, the governor of the Venice region, confirmed the official death toll was 21, ‘including a one-year-old child and a teenager’. 

Five Ukrainians were among the dead identified so far, alongside a German, a Croatian, a Frenchman and the Italian driver, he said. Officials also announced that two Austrians and two Spaniards were among the victims of the tragedy.

Mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro posted on X, formerly as Twitter: ‘A huge tragedy struck our community this evening. An apocalyptic scene. I am speechless.’ 

Nearby hospitals went into ’emergency mode’ and an urgent appeal for blood donors was issued. Five hospitals in the area in Mestre, Trevino, Dolo, Mirano and Padova have been put on emergency footing with casualty departments cleared of patients. 

One eyewitness, who gave his name as Leonardo, told Italian media: ‘I heard a strong braking, I thought it was a train. Then the sound of the impact, a thud. I was alarmed and looking out I saw smoke and heard people screaming for help.

‘As I ran and reached where I could see the bus, the screams turned into a horrifying deadly silence, which stopped my blood.’ 

He added: ‘I wanted to help but I was blocked by a friend of mine and a policewoman, because the bus was still on fire and at risk of explosion.

‘I then remained there until help arrived, which arrived after about twenty minutes.’

Forty ambulances were sent to the scene and the railway line to Venice was closed temporarily before being reopened, but operator Trenitalia said services were subject to lengthy delays and cancellations. 

‘The bus is totally crushed. The firefighters had difficulty getting a lot of the bodies out,’ Venice’s prefect Michele Di Bari told Sky Italia television.

Bari, who was at the scene, said he saw the driver’s body removed from the wreck. 

Rescuers were still struggling to remove the wreckage of the bus late on Tuesday evening to make sure no more passengers were trapped inside.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her condolences, saying in a statement that her government’s thoughts were with ‘the victims, their families and their friends’. 

‘I am in contact with mayor Luigi Brugnaro and (Transport) Minister Matteo Salvini in order to follow the news of this tragedy,’ she said in a statement.

Salvini was among those who suggested the cause of the accident could be the driver suddenly taking sick.

Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi had earlier said: ‘The bus has fallen 10 metres and caught fire and what worsened the situation was that it was biomethane powered.’ 

He said the ‘aggravating factor’ was methane, and that the fire spread rapidly. Officials later confirmed the bus was electric, and that batteries likely caught fire on impact. Piantedosi said more bodies could have been lost to the flames.

Francesso Moraglia, the Patriarch of Venice, was at the site where he blessed the dead, their bodies covered with white shrouds on which bouquets of red flowers had been placed.

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen offered their condolences.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she was ‘deeply saddened by the terrible bus tragedy… In this night of grief, my thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends’.

Venice police chief Marco Agostini told local media: ‘There appears to be no brake marks on the asphalt so the theory of a medical episode is a possibility’ 

Rescuers were still struggling to remove the wreckage of the bus late on Tuesday evening

Venice police chief Marco Agostini told local media: ‘There appears to be no brake marks on the asphalt so the theory of a medical episode is a possibility’ 

Shocking photos show crowds of emergency services attending the tragedy which has so far seen more than 20 people dead

Italian scientific police members are pictured at work at the scene of the crashed coach 

Huge crowds of people were seen attending the tragedy, with emergency services at the scene many hours after the crash 

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the German foreign affairs department told AFP its embassy in Rome was working with Italian authorities to verify whether German nationals were among the victims.

Shocking footage posted on X shows the vehicle in flames which huge plumes of smoke rising into the air while onlookers watch in horror.

It comes after Italy has suffered a number of deadly bus crashes in recent years.

Sixteen people on board a bus carrying Hungarian students died in an accident near the northern city of Verona in 2017, while 40 people died in 2013 when a bus plunged off a viaduct in southern Italy.

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