YEREVAN. – (news.am) The 32 passengers, who had received minor injuries or none at all in the Armenian bus crash in Russia, arrived in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan on Thursday evening, with a special flight by an aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations .
They were met at the Zvartnots International Airport by their relatives as well as psychologists and medical workers.
The bus crash survivors generally refused to talk about what had happened.
Around ten of them, however, immediately went to hospitals from the airport.
Some of the passengers, who returned to Armenia on Thursday, had lost either friends or relatives in the tragic road accident.
Bodies of the eight passengers, who were killed in the crash, also were brought to Armenia with the aforementioned special flight.
Several dozen people were affected as a passenger bus, which was traveling from Moscow to Yerevan, crashed on Tuesday at around 2:10am local time, in Tula Oblast (province) in Russia.
Seven people were killed on the spot while another passenger died in hospital. Nine of the injured are in serious condition.
There were 59 passengers on the bus, but no children were among them.
The injured were taken to the three nearby hospitals.
Russia has opened a criminal case into this bus crash, and on charges of “breaking the road traffic and vehicle operation rules.” A similar case has been filed in Armenia, too.
According to preliminary data, the bus driver, Garnik Harutyunyan, had fallen asleep at the steering wheel.
The Tula provincial court on Wednesday handed down a two-month arrest for Harutyunyan.