A packed Montseny park bus plunges 20 metres off a mountain road in Catalonia, injuring 87, and the Generalitat weighs a ban on standing passengers

A crowded public bus carrying day-trippers home from the Montseny natural park left a narrow, winding mountain road in Catalonia on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 25, and fell about 20 metres down a slope of trees and rocks, injuring at least 87 people, according to Catalan emergency services (RTVE; @semgencat). No one died. The first call to the 112 emergency line came at 4:43 p.m. local time, which by this desk’s conversion matches 8:43 a.m. on the U.S. West Coast (Diari de Catalunya). The crash happened at kilometre 18.4 of the BV-5114, in the municipality of Fogars de Montclús, according to Protecció Civil figures carried by Diari de Catalunya (Diari de Catalunya); El Periódico places the town in the Vallès Oriental district (El Periódico). No other vehicle took part, RTVE and La Vanguardia reported on Sunday (RTVE; La Vanguardia).

The bus belonged to Sagalés and ran line 573, a shuttle that links the Rodalies commuter-rail station in Sant Celoni with Santa Fe del Montseny, in the heart of the park, RTVE reports (RTVE). La Vanguardia describes the line as part of a Generalitat concession that runs on weekends and holidays to steer visitors out of private cars on one of the region’s most popular autumn routes (La Vanguardia). The crash came on one of the park’s busiest weekends, a week before the Castanyada chestnut festival and during Sant Celoni’s Fira del Bosc, according to El Periódico (El Periódico). Sagalés said in a statement that it continues to work with the emergency services and the relevant authorities, RTVE reports (RTVE).

The rescue took hours on unstable ground. Bombers de la Generalitat, Catalonia’s fire and rescue service, said on X that some 30 crews worked the scene and brought people up from the slope on foot and by helicopter (@bomberscat). Santi Lleonart, the Bombers’ chief of operations at the scene, described the site as hard to reach and very unstable, and the first task involved propping up the bus so crews could evacuate it safely, La Vanguardia reports (La Vanguardia). Many of the lightly injured climbed the embankment to the road on their own; others, trapped inside, had to wait for rescuers, according to RTVE (RTVE). The SEM sent 33 ambulances, two medical helicopters, three joint teams with the Bombers and three psychological support teams (@semgencat). Protecció Civil opened a reception centre at Can Ramis in Sant Celoni with the Red Cross, and by late Sunday everyone there had left, some on a Sagalés bus to Barcelona after hospital discharge (Diari de Catalunya; @emergenciescat).

The injury count rose overnight. At 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Protecció Civil figures listed 83 people treated: 58 with minor injuries, 18 less serious and seven serious (Diari de Catalunya). The SEM’s Monday morning update raised the total to 87, with 49 minor, 31 less serious and seven serious, and listed nine hospitals that received patients, from Sant Celoni and Granollers to Vall d’Hebron and Sant Pau in Barcelona and the Josep Trueta in Girona (@semgencat). By the 1:30 p.m. Monday balance, 37 people remained in hospital and eight lay in intensive care, El Periódico reports (El Periódico); Ara writes that two of the eight, both minors, receive care in the pediatric intensive care unit at Vall d’Hebron (Ara). Jorge Morales, the SEM’s medical director, said all of the patients had multiple injuries and that the full extent of the harm would take hours to establish, according to Europa Press figures carried by Teleprensa (Teleprensa).

How many people rode the bus remains unclear. The vehicle had 65 seats, and Lleonart said on Sunday that no one knew the exact number aboard, because the shuttle had picked up passengers at several stops on the way, RTVE reports (RTVE). La Vanguardia writes that every seat had a passenger and that some people stood in the aisle, as often happens on the line’s busiest days (La Vanguardia). The public broadcaster 3Cat reported on Monday morning that about 40 people travelled standing (@3CatInfo). Ara notes that no passenger list exists for this kind of service, so the count rests on the people that emergency crews treated (Ara).

Police have opened an inquiry. Quique Granero, the deputy inspector in charge of the Mossos d’Esquadra regional traffic unit in Mollet del Vallès, told reporters that the driver had tested negative for alcohol and drugs, EFE reports (EFE via laSexta; El Mundo). He stressed that the rules allow some passengers to stand on this kind of service, and said investigators want to establish how many stood and whether the number went beyond the limit. The cause of the crash remains unknown, and the investigation stays at the data-gathering stage, according to EFE (EFE via laSexta; El Mundo).

The crash has reopened a debate over standing on intercity buses. Interior minister Núria Parlon told the radio station RAC1 on Monday that standing passengers do not break the law, but that the government should now examine whether that ought to change, Ara reports (Ara). She suggested that passengers on interurban routes, and above all on mountain roads, may need to travel seated and belted, and she called it a miracle that no one died, according to 20minutos (20minutos). In a clip posted by 3Cat, Parlon says the Territory department and the Catalan Traffic Service want to propose measures to keep occupants from standing on interurban buses in mountain areas (@3CatInfo). She also raised larger fleets and more frequent services as alternatives, 20minutos reports (20minutos).

Operators and experts point to the trade-offs. The bus operators’ association Fecav told Ara that the rule permitting standing passengers derives from European regulation, that the sector will follow any change, and that fewer places per bus would require more buses and more frequent services to keep the same capacity (Ara). Joan Carles Salmerón, director of the Terminus transport studies centre, told Ara that more and more people stand on interurban buses around Barcelona, the two Vallès districts and the Maresme coast, and that authorities and operators must plan for more vehicles (Ara). La Vanguardia reports that the Generalitat allows standing on routes shorter than 50 kilometres, and that only tourist and excursion coaches must carry every passenger seated and belted, according to Ara (La Vanguardia; Ara). Lluïsa Moret, spokeswoman for the Socialists’ Catalan branch and head of the Barcelona provincial council, said the Territory department would meet the company on Monday because it wants objective data on the crash, 3Cat reports (@3CatInfo).

Work at the scene continued on Monday. Overnight searches around the bus with thermal cameras, drones and dogs found no one, and the Bombers judged it very likely that no one remained (@bomberscat). Crews resumed in the morning with 16 units, including the GRAE special-operations group, the search-dog unit and drones, and widened the perimeter (RTVE Catalunya; El Mundo). A heavy-lift crane must raise the bus so that crews can rule out anyone underneath it, and the Bombers said they helped the company’s technicians choose and manage the crane (@bomberscat; El Mundo). On Monday Protecció Civil lowered its PROCICAT transport-emergency plan to pre-alert and said the BV-5114 and the GIV-5201 would stay closed until the bus leaves the slope (@emergenciescat). Catalan president Salvador Illa wrote on X on Sunday that he stayed in constant contact with Parlon and health minister Olga Pané, RTVE reports (RTVE).

Much remains open as of this report. Officials have not said what made the bus leave the road. Some Spanish outlets, including Ara and Telecinco’s news service, described a collision with a car in posts on X on Monday (@diariARA; @informativost5), but RTVE and La Vanguardia reported on Sunday that no other vehicle took part, and this desk has seen no official statement that settles the point (RTVE; La Vanguardia). The number of passengers aboard, the number standing and the depth of the fall also vary by source. This desk will update the story when the Mossos, the SEM or the Generalitat publish new figures.