43 Killed When Bus Plunges Into Quebec Ravine Five Other Passengers Critically Injured On Trip To View Eastern Canada Fall Colors

A bus carrying nearly 50 senior citizens on a Canadian Thanksgiving Day trip to view the fall colors plunged into a ravine Monday in central Quebec, killing 43 people.

Quebec provincial police said the accident occurred in the afternoon about 60 miles northeast of Quebec City. The bus was traveling on Highway 138 and crashed at the bottom of a steep hill heading into a hard right curve.

Real Ouellette, a Quebec provincial police spokesman, said faulty brakes were the likely cause of the tragedy, which killed 43 of the 48 people aboard.

There were no skid marks at the bottom of the hill.

The five survivors were taken to hospitals in nearby La Malbaie and Baie-St.-Paul. Michelle Robitaille, a spokeswoman for the Charlevoix Hospital Center in Baie-St.-Paul, told The Associated Press that five injured people were brought there in critical condition and four of them were transferred to a trauma center in Quebec City.

Monday’s crash was the deadliest in Canada in recent memory.

The passengers belonged to a senior citizens club in the Beauce region southeast of Quebec City, Ouellette said.

Conditions on the twisting road were dry and the weather was sunny. The hill’s steep grade is marked by warning signs. Automobile drivers usually take it in first gear and even then brake frequently.

The bus was headed for Ile aux Coudres, a vacation island in the St. Lawrence River where seasonal foliage changes are especially brilliant this time of year.

The island is reached by ferry from St.-Joseph-de-la-Rive, a small town with a maritime museum, restaurants, gift shops and farms. The area is popular with tourists.

Andre Castonguay, who arrived shortly after the accident, said there was a 60-foot drop from the highway to the spot where the Mercier bus landed.

Castonguay, his son and others rushed out immediately to help the injured.

At the scene, emergency workers and passers-by helped shuttle bodies from the bus, which was propped on its side in the ravine between the hill and an elevated length of railroad track that straddles a tributary of the St. Lawrence.