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Two dead after Swedish bus crash in Norway

Two people were killed and several seriously injured on Monday when two buses, one Norwegian and one Swedish with foreign tourists aboard, collided in western Norway, local authorities said.

Published: 13 August 2013 09:19 CEST
Two dead after Swedish bus crash in Norway

The NTB news agency said that a woman from Norway and a woman from Taiwan

had died.

The frontal collision took place late Monday afternoon as the two buses travelled on a road connecting the towns of Sogndal and Lekanger, the head of local police operations, Hans Petter Harlem, said.

Sogndal mayor Jarle Aarvoll told news channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen that two people were killed and several were seriously injured.

According to police, a total of around 30 passengers were on board the two buses. The nationalities of the passengers were not immediately known.

Aarvoll said some of them were Chinese, while police said some were Taiwanese.

IN PICTURES: See more images from the crash scene

Taiwan’s government said Tuesday that one Taiwanese tourist was killed and seven others were injured in the collision.

The deceased was identified as 26-year-old Lin Wen-ling while two women were seriously injured and five others had minor injuries, said the Tourism Bureau.

They were with a 23-member tour group, including a guide, that was on a 13-day trip to Scandinavia that left Taiwan on Thursday, the bureau said, adding that the injured had been hospitalised.

Photos from the scene published by Norwegian media showed the front of the Swedish bus was completely demolished, the windshield shattered and several windows blown out.

With its fjords, western Norway is highly popular with tourists in the summer.

Last week in the same region, a Polish lorry caught fire in the country’s second-longest tunnel, sending 73 people to hospital for smoke inhalation, including Chinese, French and German tourists.

AFP/The Local/og

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NORWAY

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland

Norway, which has suspended the use of AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine until further notice, will send 216,000 doses to Sweden and Iceland at their request, the Norwegian health ministry said Thursday.

Published: 22 April 2021 14:29 CEST
Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland
Empty vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

“I’m happy that the vaccines we have in stock can be put to use even if the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Norway,” Health Minister Bent Høie said in a statement.

The 216,000 doses, which are currently stored in Norwegian fridges, have to be used before their expiry dates in June and July.

Sweden will receive 200,000 shots and Iceland 16,000 under the expectation they will return the favour at some point. 

“If we do resume the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will get the doses back as soon as we ask,” Høie said.

Like neighbouring Denmark, Norway suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab on March 11 in order to examine rare but potentially severe side effects, including blood clots.

Among the 134,000 AstraZeneca shots administered in Norway before the suspension, five cases of severe thrombosis, including three fatal ones, had been registered among relatively young people in otherwise good health. One other person died of a brain haemorrhage.

On April 15, Norway’s government ignored a recommendation from the Institute of Public Health to drop the AstraZeneca jab for good, saying it wanted more time to decide.

READ MORE: Norway delays final decision on withdrawal of AstraZeneca vaccine 

The government has therefore set up a committee of Norwegian and international experts tasked with studying all of the risks linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which is also suspected of causing blood clots.

Both are both based on adenovirus vector technology. Denmark is the only European country to have dropped the AstraZeneca
vaccine from its vaccination campaign, and said on Tuesday it would “lend” 55,000 doses to the neighbouring German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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