Twelve dead, 50 injured in Bulgarian motorway pile-up in heavy fog

Twelve people have died in a motorway pile-up in eastern Bulgaria involving dozens of vehicles in thick fog, officials said.

Police, firefighters and ambulance crews rushed to the scene near the city of Yambol on the A1 road that links the capital Sofia with the eastern city of Burgas.

Images on local media showed cars and trucks piled up across six lanes of highway, many crushed, overturned, or veered off to the side.

Briefing reporters at the site of the accident, General Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Lyubomir Nikolov, said that fog was the likely cause of the accident which started with a collision between a bus and a truck about 75 kilometres west of Burgas.

Eleven people died at the scene and another died in hospital, Healthcare Minister Katya Ivkova told reporters.

Another 50 people who were injured were taken to hospital, according to the interior ministry.

Yambol Regional Governor Georgi Chalakov told Bulgarian state news agency BTA that about 50 vehicles were involved.

Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Wednesday, local time, would be a day of mourning in Bulgaria.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was visiting Bulgaria on Tuesday but said she would cut her visit short.

"I would like to express my deepest condolences and I would like to pay respects to the rescue teams," Ms von der Leyen said.

Mr Radev described the accident as a "tragedy" in a statement and said that he had deployed aircraft to evacuate the wounded and planned to visit the scene, where initially people had been trapped in their vehicles.