At Least 30 Die, Dozens Are Injured in Fiery Venezuelan Bus Crash

A passenger bus slammed into another on a mountain highway Wednesday and shoved it into an oil pipeline that exploded. At least 30 people were killed in the inferno, and dozens were injured.

The toll could go higher. Most of the dead were on the stricken bus, which listed about 50 passengers. Rescue workers who cut the roof off to get inside found the passengers burned beyond recognition.

“People were screaming desperately,” one survivor, Alberto Restan, 29, said at a hospital. “I saved myself by a miracle. I jumped out a window.” Moments later, the bus blew up. “When the bus exploded, there was no more screaming.”

Officials from the government and the bus company said three buses--all traveling from Caracas to Maturin--were involved.

The first bus apparently broke down and stopped along the national highway about 19 miles west of this state capital, which is about 300 miles southeast of Caracas.

A second bus came along and stopped, offering assistance. Then a third bus, traveling at high speed, hit the first bus from behind, sending it careening into the fuel pipe, Transport Ministry and Civil Defense officials said.

The victims were all from the first two buses.