38 Die in Crash of Spanish Bus Carrying Elderly

A bus carrying elderly vacationers skidded off a highway and tumbled down a 450-foot ravine in northwestern Spain on Friday, killing 38 people and seriously injuring seven, officials said.

Officials said the bus’s brakes apparently failed as it headed down a winding highway near the town of Monterrey, 280 miles northwest of Madrid.

Rescue workers retrieved the bodies of 34 people, including the bus driver, from the mangled wreckage and surrounding mountainside, a provincial government spokesman said. Three people died en route to a hospital, and two others died during treatment in the provincial capital of Orense.

Several victims were hurled out the windows, and others were crushed when the bus flipped twice in its 450-foot fall before landing at the bottom of the ravine, the spokesman said.

Seven people were reported in serious condition at hospitals in Orense.