MONTREAL: A glacier-viewing tour bus rolled over at a popular tourist spot in the Canadian Rockies on Saturday (Jul 19), killing three people and seriously injuring several others, news reports said.
The all-terrain vehicle rolled off the road near the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park, Alberta, national broadcaster CBC said.
Photos published by media outlets show the upturned red-and-white bus, equipped with monster-truck style tires for crossing ice, on a rocky slope below the road across the glacier’s moraine.
The bus lost control and rolled down the hill, witness Vanja Krtolica told the Globe and Mail.
“All of a sudden, everybody started screaming because they saw the coach lose control,” said Krtolica, who was on a similar bus.
“It was careening down that 33 degree … steep hill and lost control,” he told the newspaper.
CBC News said the bus was owned by Pursuit, the company that operates tours of the ice fields, which are part of the Athabasca Glacier.
Three adults were killed out of the 27 passengers, and several emergency workers and fire departments were descending on the scene, the report said, citing The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Critically injured passengers were being transported from the crash site to various Alberta hospitals on helicopter ambulances, it said.
The report said several hospitals in the province were preparing to receive patients, some in critical or serious condition, citing a spokesperson for Alberta Health Services.
RCMP are investigating the cause of the roll-over with the support of a collision analyst, according to CBC News.