Nine killed as bus rolls in wet conditions in southern Turkey

The driver and eight passengers have died after an intercity bus rolled off a road in southern Turkey’s Antalya province on Sunday, a senior official said.

Images from state broadcaster TRT showed the vehicle lying on its side on an embankment on a highway slip road in Dosemealti, a district to the northwest of Antalya city centre.

Provincial Governor Hulusi Sahin said 21 people were injured, seven of whom suffered critical wounds such as severed limbs. The driver was among the fatalities.

The DHA news agency reported that some passengers were thrown from the bus, which had travelled overnight from Tekirdag in Turkey’s northwest.

Antalya, a popular tourist destination on the Mediterranean, has been hit by heavy rain in recent days. “The ground was wet and there was also fog in the area. It’s not a place to speed, but it seems the bus was speeding,” Sahin told TRT.

The same day, seven people died in a head-on car collision in Burdur, some 65km (40 miles) north of Dosemealti.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya took to social media to lament a “traffic culture” that saw 6,351 people die on Turkey’s roads in 2024 and outline existing proposals to tighten traffic laws.