25 killed, 44 injured as bus plunges into ravine near Algiers

A bus carrying passengers from Sétif to the Algerian capital skidded in El Karma, about 50 kilometers from Algiers, before plunging into a deep ravine, killing at least 25 people and injuring 44 others. Algerian Civil Protection said the toll was provisional as rescuers moved quickly to retrieve victims and transport the injured.

The crash turned a routine intercity trip into a mass-casualty scene on a steep stretch of road near the capital. Rescue operations were underway at the site, where the ravine made access difficult and added urgency to the effort to reach passengers trapped in and around the wreckage. The heavy casualty count underscores how quickly a single bus can overwhelm emergency crews when a vehicle leaves the roadway and falls into terrain that offers little margin for error.

The location also sharpens the wider road-safety questions that follow deadly bus crashes across the region. A passenger vehicle carrying people between Sétif and Algiers concentrates dozens of lives in one machine, so any combination of speed, mechanical failure, driver error, overloading, poor maintenance or weak roadside protection can turn a break in control into a fatal plunge. In crashes like this, investigators typically examine the condition of the bus, the state of the road surface and barriers, and whether the route itself leaves drivers and passengers exposed to steep drops.

The scale of the death toll already places the accident among the region’s deadliest road disasters in recent memory. The prime minister visited the crash site as authorities worked through the immediate response, a sign of how strongly the tragedy resonated beyond El Karma and into the national political sphere. With 25 dead and 44 injured, the focus now falls on the road, the vehicle and the enforcement system meant to keep a passenger bus from ending up in a ravine.