Five cars were also involved in the deadly crash on the A16 highway in Vallesaccarda, in the province of Avellino.
The driver of the bus, which left Lecce at around 11pm local time travelling to Rome with 38 passengers, swerved to avoid two cars that were stationary after an earlier rear-ending incident, and ended up sliding down the steep ridge.
Three other cars, which were following the bus, ended up against the cars stopped in the centre of the road, but it is not clear how severe impact was in this part of the accident scene.
A man who was a passenger in one of the earlier two cars involved, died on impact, while 14 others, many of them passengers on the bus, were injured.
Three of the 14 injured – two particularly serious – were taken to Ariano Irpino, three to Avellino and the remaining eight to Benevento.
“Everyone was sleeping, I think,” one young passenger told local media.
“What woke us up was the violent braking and then the bang, when we collided with the cars, before ending up in the escarpment.”
Another passenger on the bus, Laura, from Brindisi, was also asleep at the back of the bus at the time of impact.
“It was a tremendous crash,” she said.
“... in a few seconds we found ourselves on the escarpment.
“The bus remained almost suspended, and we managed to get out one at a time crawling on our stomachs.”
The accident brings to mind the bus tragedy in Monteforte Irpino, also in the province of Avellino, on July 28, 2013 when 40 people were killed when the brakes failed on a bus travelling from Pozzuoli (Naples), causing it to career through the guard rail of the “Acqualonga” viaduct of the A16 Naples-Canosa, and fall 30 metres into a ravine.
Thirty-eight people died instantly, two in the following days and there were just ten survivors.
ANSA
