Nicaragua bus crash: Six killed by killer bees after bus crashes into hives

The bus disturbed the hives as it plunged down a slope. Photo / Radio Ya

Six people including a mother and her eight-year-old daughter have died after being attacked by killer bees following a traffic accident in Nicaragua.

The victims were among around 60 passengers on board a coach that came off the road and ended up crashing in an area where African honeybees were being kept in hives.

The angry insects are said to have reacted by stinging 45 passengers on the bus as they escaped from the vehicle.

Although the coach was damaged after plunging more than 48m off the road into a coffee plantation where the bees were being kept in wooden hives, local reports say medics are attributing the victims’ deaths to the insect stings.

Initial reports put the number of dead at four following Monday morning’s accident.

But it later emerged two of the most seriously-injured victims had died in hospital.

Four-year-old in serious condition

The crash happened in the municipality of San Sebastian de Yali, around 185km north of the Nicaraguan capital Managua.

The victims included a 47-year-old woman named locally as Eneyda Torrez Zelaya, and her daughter Andrea Carolina Garcia Torrez, 8.

Another of those killed was an 84-year-old woman named as Reyna Isabel Olivas Montalvan.

A four-year-old boy is said to be in a serious condition in Victoria Mota Hospital in Jinotega, the nearest city to the crash scene.

Photos of those injured showed the victims with dozens of red welts all over their upper bodies.

Some were filmed arriving at hospital in the back of ambulances surrounded by anguished crowds of people.

Investigation under way

An investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing, although initial reports point to the 22-year-old driver losing control of his vehicle because of mechanical faults.

Africanised bees, also known as Africanised honey bees and colloquially as the “killer bee”, is a hybrid of the western honey bee.

They are typically more defensive, reacting to disturbances faster and chasing people further than other varieties of honey bees.

They have killed some 1000 humans, with victims receiving 10 times more stings than from European honey bees.

The insects, which spread through South and North America after being introduced to Brazil in the 1950s and escaping quarantine, have also been blamed for the deaths of horses and other animals they have attacked.