A bus crash on Cape Verde's Fogo Island killed about 25 people on Saturday after the vehicle veered off the road, fell down a roughly 30-meter cliff and landed in a ravine that rescuers struggled to reach. Most of the dead were young people and teenagers, turning a routine trip into one of the island's deadliest road disasters in recent memory.
Local reports said 20 people died at the scene and five more died later in hospital overnight. Seven of the victims were buried overnight, a pace that underscored how quickly the crash overwhelmed families and emergency teams.
The victims included students from Curral Grande and Ponta Verde, and José Pedro Gonçalves said the outing had not been organized by the schools. He said the driver arranged the trip every year with students he transported during the school year, which helps explain why so many of the dead were teenagers even though the journey was treated as a private outing. The driver also died in the crash.
What caused the bus to leave the road is still unknown. That gap matters because the scene itself already tells part of the story: a bus on a cliffside road, a hard-to-reach ravine below, and a recovery effort forced to work against terrain as much as against time. Until investigators can explain why the vehicle went over the edge, the best-supported conclusion is that a trip meant to repeat every year ended in a crash that wiped out an entire group of young passengers in one blow.
