A 12th passenger has died following the bus crash in South Ossetia on Sunday as an emergencies official said the accident occurred when the driver swerved to avoid a truck and lost control on the slippery road.
"One of the victims was in critical condition and later died," said a source at the Central Republican Hospital in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali. The dead include two children.
All 13 survivors of the crash remain in the hospital, including the driver. He is reportedly in a serious condition with injuries said to have been sustained as he jumped from the bus.
"There was no collision, but a KAMAZ [truck] forced the bus to make a maneuver, because of which the bus went off the road and overturned," a spokesperson for the South Ossetian Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Television pictures from the scene showed the bus lying upside down with its roof almost totally crushed some distance from the road down a steep slope.
South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity, who is on his way to Nicaragua, expressed his condolences to the families of those killed and injured and promised them aid.
"The aircraft of the president of South Ossetia landed in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, for refueling. The South Ossetian leader was informed about the tragedy in the country. By his orders, all the bereaved families will receive material assistance," the head of the presidential administration was quoted as saying by Committee of Information, Communications and Mass Media.
Arsen Gagloyev added that Kokoity had ordered a state commission to investigate the causes of the accident and to assist the families of those killed and wounded.
The accident occurred not far from the Roki Tunnel that connects the Russian republic of North Ossetia with the former Georgian republic of South Ossetia.
The South Ossetian Interior Ministry said everyone on the bus had Russian passports, although many South Ossetians took Russian citizenship during the republic's years of de facto independence from Georgia.
MOSCOW, July 18 (RIA Novosti)
