A tour bus carrying German tourists crashed on Portugal's Madeira Island on Wednesday, killing 29 people and injuring 28 others, local authorities said. Most of the casualties were German, Carmo Silva. In total, 56 people were on board when the bus crashed. The cause of the crash, which happened in daylight in the early evening on Wednesday, was not immediately clear. Filipe Sousa, the mayor of Santa Cruz, told broadcaster RTP3 that 18 women and 11 men were killed in the accident that happened at 6:30 pm local time. Local television showed bodies scattered over a rural hillside next to the Atlantic Ocean. Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said preliminary reports he had received indicated all the dead were German. But Tomasia Alves, head of the Funchal hospital, said not all the victims had been identified and refused to confirm the nationality of the dead. Pedro Calado, vice president of Madeira's regional government, said at a news conference that the injured, including the Portuguese driver and a local tour guide, were taken to a hospital. Madeira, off northwestern Africa, is a popular vacation destination for Europeans due to its mild climate and lush, hilly landscape.
