Tel Aviv - Two Russian aircraft landed in Israel Wednesday,
one carrying relatives of 24 tour guides killed in a bus accident in
southern Israel Tuesday, the other with doctors and forensic experts
to help identify the bodies.
An El AL Israel Airlines flight to Russia, which was to have
departed Wednesday night carrying the bodies of the victims of the
crash, was cancelled, after Moscow said it would send an aircraft to
bring the dead home.
The crash occurred late Tuesday afternoon near the southern
Israeli resort city of Eilat when a bus transporting the travel
agents, who had just arrived in the country, plunged into a gully
along the hilly, winding road next to the Israel-Sinai border.
Witnesses said the bus, which was traveling well above the speed
limit, left the road as its driver attempted to overtake another bus
on a sharp curve.
Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz said Wednesday afternoon
that the two bus drivers had argued over who would proceed first
through a checkpoint, and this led them to race each other along the
way.
Mofaz added, however, that his conclusions were not final, and
police said they were still investigating the accident and could not
give definite answers yet as to the exact cause of the crash.
The driver of the fatal bus, who was injured in the crash, was
reported to have had 22 traffic violations on his record, although
his driver's license was still valid.
Twenty-seven of the 31 people wounded in the accident remained
in hospital Wednesday, Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.
Two of the injured were pronounced dead on arrival at hospital and
two others died shortly afterwards.
All the injured have been transferred from the hospital in Eilat,
near the scene of the crash, to medical centres elsewhere in the
country.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, who spoke Tuesday evening with his
Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, expressed condolences and said
that although the accident was caused by the mistake of one person,
'we feel as if this tragedy happened to us.'
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