At least 21 people died on Tuesday after a city bus carrying tourists to a campsite fell off an overpass near Venice in northern Italy and caught fire, the city's prefect Michele di Bari said.

The bus veered off the road and fell near railway lines in the Mestre district, which is connected to Venice by a bridge. The cause of the accident is still unclear, according to Reuters. The vehicle fell 30 meters onto power lines and caught fire around 8:45 p.m. Bulgarian time.

"It's an apocalyptic scene. I have no words," Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro wrote on the "X" platform.

The head of the local fire department said that the victims identified so far are Ukrainian tourists. The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Germans and Ukrainians were among the passengers.

Di Bari said he could not confirm this.

Italy has suffered a number of deadly bus crashes in recent years.

In 2017, a bus carrying Hungarian students killed 16 people in an accident near the northern city of Verona. In 2013, a bus fell from a viaduct in southern Italy in one of the country's worst road accidents, killing 40 people.

"The bus is completely crushed. Firefighters had difficulty removing a large part of the bodies," di Bari, who is the local representative of the interior ministry, told Sky Italia TV. He specified that 21 people died, including the Italian driver and two children.

Venice City Hall later said 18 people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals, with four in serious condition.

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