Passenger bus plunges off Antalya slip road - eight dead, 26 injured

A passenger coach traveling toward the resort city of Antalya veered off a slip road at the Kömürler junction in the Döşemealtı district and rolled into a ravine, provincial authorities said, killing eight people and injuring 26 others. Governor Hulusi Şahin gave the official toll and said many of the wounded were taken to nearby hospitals, some in serious condition.

Emergency crews converged on the scene after the crash, which Şahin said occurred at about 10:20 a.m. Images from state broadcasters showed the bus on its side on an embankment. The governor described wet and foggy conditions at the site and warned that the vehicle appeared to have been traveling too fast for the turn. “Eight of our citizens have lost their lives and 26 have been injured,” Şahin said. “It’s not a place to speed, but it seems the bus was speeding.”

Survivors gave a harrowing account of the moments before the accident. Passenger Ahmet Kodaz said the vehicle had been moving quickly through fog. “We were travelling from Isparta to Antalya. There was already fog on the road, and the driver was going very fast,” he said. “When we came to a bend, the bus couldn’t make the turn. First, it tilted sideways and slid, then it got stuck in the barrier, and then we rolled down the embankment with the passengers.”

Authorities said the bus had departed Tekirdağ overnight; one operational detail reported by local officials identified the carrier as Buzlu with license plate 26 ABG 022. Officials have not yet released a complete passenger manifest, though one count indicated roughly 34 people were on board. Emergency response teams at the scene included health services, fire crews, disaster management units, gendarmerie and police, who carried out search, rescue and evacuation operations and transferred the injured primarily to Antalya Training and Research Hospital.

Medical staff described several patients in critical condition. Some international reports cited more severe injury descriptions, including multiple patients with catastrophic limb wounds; those claims have not been independently confirmed by hospital spokespeople, and authorities said a technical investigation will determine the precise circumstances and toll. There is also conflicting reporting over whether the bus driver was among the fatalities; provincial officials have not provided a public list identifying victims.

The crash comes amid a period of heavy rain and patchy fog in the Antalya region, a factor provincial authorities say will figure in the inquiry. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya lamented on social media the broader problem of road safety and cited last year’s national toll, urging renewed focus on traffic culture and enforcement. Antalya is a major international tourist gateway, and such incidents reverberate beyond local politics, prompting consular interest when passengers include foreign visitors and raising questions about transport regulation and oversight.

Investigators will examine vehicle maintenance records, driver logs and any available tachograph or camera footage to determine if speed, weather, mechanical failure or human error were primary factors. For now, officials have limited their public statements to the immediate casualty figures and to promises of a technical probe; families of the dead and injured are being assisted at hospitals and by provincial authorities as the inquiry proceeds.