A bus carrying Polish pilgrims home from Bosnia-Herzegovina overturned in Hungary, killing 12 people and seriously injuring at least 10. Police detained the driver after the bus left the M3 motorway and overturned east of Budapest. Hungarian police said the passenger bus left the eastbound M3 motorway near Mezőkeresztes at about 1 a.m. Sunday and overturned in a ditch. Twelve people were killed and at least 10 were seriously injured, according to police and Hungary’s disaster management directorate.
Officials said 57 passengers and two drivers were aboard, and rescue workers had to free people trapped beneath the vehicle. Poland’s Foreign Ministry said everyone on the bus was a Polish citizen returning from a pilgrimage in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The route and timing place fatigue at the center of the preliminary inquiry, but investigators still must test that theory against road geometry, vehicle systems, speed, weather and duty records. The detention preserves the criminal inquiry; it does not by itself establish guilt or exclude equipment failure.
Hungarian police said their initial assessment was that the driver may have fallen asleep and confirmed that the driver was taken into custody. Hungarian and Polish leaders issued condolences while emergency and consular teams worked with victims and relatives across the border. Nighttime long-distance coach travel depends on enforceable driving-hour, rest and vehicle-safety rules across national jurisdictions. An initial police theory is not a final finding; crash reconstruction, vehicle inspection and driver records are needed to establish causation.
Because the passengers were foreign nationals, identification, hospital coordination and family notifications require bilateral consular work. The principal evidentiary limit at the edition cutoff was this: Authorities had not released a final crash reconstruction, toxicology results or a complete hospital-status list. The next public records to watch are Hungarian police findings on driver hours and vehicle condition and Polish consular updates and the condition of the injured passengers.