29 still hospitalized after bus plunges down Barcelona embankment

A day after a scheduled bus journey home from Montseny Natural Park ended in a roughly 20-metre plunge, the aftermath was still being counted in hospital beds. By Monday evening, October 26, 29 people remained hospitalized, 12 of them described as serious. The bus had been recovered and firefighters had completed their search for additional victims, but investigators still had no established explanation for why it left the road. No deaths had been reported. ^{16 8}

The crash happened on Sunday afternoon, October 25, 2026, on the BV-5114 in Fogars de Montclús, in Barcelona province. The distinction matters: Monday was the day of recovery work and further medical updates, not the date the bus fell down the embankment. ^{12 3}

Passengers had been returning from a day in the natural park. El Español identified the bus as line 573, while 20minutos described it as a scheduled service. This was not established to have been a privately chartered excursion, and the operator’s identity has not been verified in the available reporting. ^{6 9 8}

Below the road, rescuers faced steep, difficult-to-access ground. Many passengers managed to get out themselves; others needed help. La Vanguardia’s early account described 83 people rescued and seven hospitalized at that stage. That was an account of the evacuation as it stood then—not a final measure of how many people would need hospital care. ^{5 6}

On Monday morning, firefighters and technicians from the bus company prepared to lift the vehicle out with a large crane. Later reporting confirmed its removal. Recovering the bus was more than a clearance operation: it exposed ground the wreck had concealed and allowed firefighters to rule out additional victims beneath or around it. Earlier assurances that further victims were highly unlikely had become a completed check. ^{3 8 16}

The latest medical picture is substantially different from the shorthand of 80 injured and four seriously hurt carried by Al Jazeera’s October 26 report. Those numbers should no longer lead the account. RTVE Catalunya’s Monday evening reporting, attributing its figures to Catalonia’s emergency medical service, SEM, said teams had attended to 87 people, with 29 still hospitalized and 12 serious. ^{1 16}

But replacing an earlier figure does not make every number interchangeable. The 87 counts people attended by medical teams. It is not a hospital-admission total and should not automatically be presented as 87 confirmed injuries. Although 20minutos described 87 as injured, RTVE’s more specific wording preserves what the emergency-service figure measures. ^{8 16}

An October 25 Associated Press dispatch, citing Catalan emergency medical services, had already reported 83 injured: seven seriously, 18 less seriously and 58 with minor injuries. ACN reporting used “attended” for that same total of 83. The available accounts do not explain the subsequent increase to 87 or fully reconcile the changes in severity classifications. ^{11 20 16}

Nor do those changing totals establish that any particular patient deteriorated. An emergency assessment, a later description of someone’s condition and a count of occupied hospital beds answer different questions. Without a patient-level account, a rise in the reported serious-case total cannot tell us what happened to each person.

Earlier on Monday, an EFE report put approximately 50 people still in hospital and nine collectively in critical, semi-critical or recovery and resuscitation units. It did not provide a breakdown among those units. Calling all nine critically ill would therefore overstate the evidence; comparing them directly with the later 12 serious cases would mix different clinical groupings. A separate current critical-condition count remains unavailable. ^{18 16}

The Objective subsequently reported hospitalizations falling from 37 to 29. Together, these reports show successive snapshots, not a fully timed record of admissions and discharges. The latest supported hospital count is 29; the earlier totals should not displace it. ^{19 18}

The clearest established sequence is also the shortest: the bus left the BV-5114 and fell down a steep embankment. A claim that it first struck a car is not established. Al Jazeera’s October 26 account described such a collision, but EFE reported that day that the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia’s police force, had provisionally excluded another vehicle or third party. The police position supersedes the collision claim as the working account, though it remains provisional. ^{1 14}

Police are also investigating whether too many passengers were traveling standing up. That is a line of inquiry, not a finding of overcrowding or proof of what caused the crash. The bus’s permitted capacity, the actual standing-passenger count and any causal significance have not been established. ^{4 16}

These police and medical updates are relayed through contemporary news reports; an underlying official incident log and timestamped medical release have not been directly verified. The location and crash date are established, but the precise emergency-service incident time remains unconfirmed. ^{12 14 16}

The recovery has answered whether anyone remained hidden by the wreck. It has not answered why a scheduled journey ended below the road. For now, the most consequential confirmed fact is the one that survived Monday’s changing figures: 29 people were still in hospital, and 12 were serious. ^{8 16}