At least 12 people were killed and about 50 injured on Tuesday morning when dense fog caused two massive pile-ups on Bulgaria's Trakia motorway near the city of Yambol, in the country's southeast.
Health Minister Katya Ivkova said ten of the victims died at the scene and two more in hospital. Dozens of cars, trucks and a bus were involved in the crashes; early estimates put the number at about 50 vehicles, and police later said 86 were involved.
The first emergency call came in at about 7:10 a.m., from the section of the motorway between the Zimnitsa and Kabile junctions on the Burgas-bound side. A second pile-up followed shortly afterward in the opposite direction, toward Sofia. The Trakia motorway is the main highway linking the capital to the Black Sea port city of Burgas.
According to Lyubomir Nikolov, a senior Interior Ministry official, the first crash began when a truck blocked the path of a passenger bus. One witness told Nova TV that visibility had dropped to no more than 30 meters. Regional officials also pointed to the wet road surface and to speeds that were too high for the conditions.
Images from the scene showed crushed and overturned vehicles, some of them burned out, strewn across all six lanes for about a kilometer. Rescue crews had to cut through sections of the crash barrier to reach the injured, and the fog made helicopter evacuations impossible. A local hospital suspended surgeries to free up staff and resources. Both directions of the motorway remained closed.
