A passenger bus carrying schoolchildren went over the edge on Saturday, September 5, 2026, plunging about 30 meters (100 feet) into a rocky ravine on the mountain road between Chã das Caldeiras and Campanas de Cima on Fogo Island, Cape Verde. Twenty-five people died, the driver among them, and 13 were injured.
The passengers were returning late in the afternoon from a day trip to Chã das Caldeiras, a settlement of about 700 people inside the crater of Pico do Fogo, rebuilt after the volcano buried it in 2014. The bus left the road just past a sharp bend and rolled down a stone slope until it struck a boulder. Most of the dead were children; survivors range in age from six to 16.
Thirty-eight people were aboard, including the driver, the government said after a week of shifting counts. Twenty died at the scene and five more in hospital. The injured figure was revised down from 14 when authorities established that a pregnant woman first counted among them had been travelling in a separate vehicle on the same road. About 19 people were taken to the Hospital Regional São Francisco de Assis in São Filipe, four of them under special care with multiple trauma, the health minister, Lúcio Miranda, said.
Cape Verdean officials and the National Assembly have called it the deadliest road accident in the country’s history. Prime Minister Francisco Carvalho, himself a native of Fogo, called it the greatest tragedy since independence.
Not a School-Organized Outing
Students filled nearly every seat, but the excursion had not come from their schools. Education officials said the driver arranged the trip himself, as he did every year for the pupils he carried on his school-year route. He was among the dead: Henrique Cardoso, known across the island as Djedjino, a veteran who had driven students for decades.
Seventeen of the 25 dead were students, according to José Pedro Gonçalves, the education ministry’s delegate in São Filipe — 14 from the Curral Grande school grouping and three from Ponta Verde. The families live along the northern stretch of the municipality, from Velho Manuel to Monte Preto.
Burials Before Dawn
The fall threw several people from the bus and trapped others inside, and crews had to work on rocky ground where the vehicle came to rest. Seven of the dead were buried at about 3:30 a.m. on Sunday at the São Lourenço cemetery. The Associated Press reported that the seven were buried immediately because of the condition of the bodies, citing local media and the island’s health authorities; the Cape Verdean outlet A Nação attributed the timing to logistical arrangements and the bereaved families’ own requests. The remaining 18 were buried later that day after a funeral mass.
The São Filipe Municipal Council said a council team was in the field alongside the island’s Health Delegation, the National Police and the Municipal Volunteer Fire Brigade, and extended its solidarity to the victims’ classmates, teachers and school communities. President José Maria Neves wrote on the day of the crash, when the known toll stood at 10, that it was “a true tragedy” and offered “my condolences to the bereaved families, to the friends of the victims, and to the island of Fogo.” He flew to Fogo the next day, calling it a great catastrophe, and attended the funerals with the prime minister.
The government declared two days of national mourning; São Filipe declared two days of municipal mourning of its own.
Cause Remains Under Investigation
No official cause has been established. A government resolution published in the official gazette on September 11 created a commission of inquiry to examine the causes, the circumstances and any responsibilities, alongside a crisis management office. The multidisciplinary team drawn up by the Council of Ministers takes in the Judicial Police, the National Police, the Directorate-General of Road Transport, the armed forces and engineers from the national roads agency, and preliminary results were expected before September 20. Miranda, who speaks for the crisis cabinet, said the government held partial information it would not yet release.
Early accounts differed on what happened in the moments before the bus went over. Some outlets described it simply running off the road; witnesses relayed through Cape Verdean television raised a tire blowout, a theory no authority has endorsed. Investigators have said they will examine the road surface and the point of departure from the carriageway, the vehicle’s mechanical condition, road construction and inspection practice, and survivor testimony.
A Small Nation, an Outsized Loss
About half a million people live in Cape Verde, an archipelago off the West African coast, so a crash of this scale registers nationally as well as locally. The government has assumed the funeral costs and the travel costs of families coming to the island. Mayor Nuías Silva announced 100,000 escudos, about $950, for each victim’s family, along with food parcels and psychological support, and the council opened an account for donations. A memorial mass was held a week after the crash.
Figures presented to parliament by Interior Minister Paulo Rocha counted 5,903 road crashes across the country in 2024. Those crashes killed 39 people, seriously injured 154 and left 1,404 hurt less severely. Crashes rose 6.4 percent from 2023, while the death toll increased by two.
Those national counts capture only reported crashes. The World Health Organization’s 2023 road-safety report, which corrects for under-reporting, estimated 97 road deaths in Cape Verde in 2021 — roughly two and a half times the officially reported figure — and a death rate of 16.5 per 100,000 residents, calculated against a population estimate that has since been revised sharply downward.
Ten days on, the wreck was still in the ravine while a technical team worked out how to lift it, and the inquiry into what sent the bus off the road had yet to report.