The incident happened minutes after 5 a.m. The bus driver was César Tinoco Cantillano; the man driving the truck was Luismer Espinoza. The bus had strayed into the oncoming lane and hit the semi head on. 10 managed to survive.

The bus was on its way to La Ceiba with more than 20 people on board, including musicians, dancers and workers of Las Chicas Samba, La Raza and Kazabe. They were returning to La Ceiba after several performances in different night clubs in San Pedro Sula.

After the collision, the semi truck’s cabin, with the driver inside, separated from the trailer and went flying. It landed in an empty hole about 15 meters from the highway. The bus, meanwhile, exploded and was covered in flames.

A little after 5:25 am, one fire truck and an ambulance from El Progreso arrived at the scene and started to put out the flames that were taking the passengers lives.

“When we arrived, the bus was 80% in flames, and many people had already died. After extinguishing the fire, we could see that it was more than ten dead,” Milton Padilla, a fire fighter from El Progreso explained.

At 5:35 am, the injured were transported in ambulances to the emergency room in Hospital El Progreso. Some suffered from fractures, there were head injuries, and severe burns.

Mario Rivas Carlos Bernadez (a drummer from La Raza group) who had caught a ride with the Chicas Samba, received a severe skull injury and passed away hours later. Surgeon Oscar Valladares, and General Practitioner, Carlos Raudales who were in the emergency room of the El Progreso hospital, explained that Bernardez’ brain had been exposed.

Among the injured was Jesus Martinez, a vocalist in the La Rasa group who had participated in a musical presentation at Landos Chicken. He too, was catching a ride to La Ceiba. “I have had a lot of interviews now, I’m worse than Jennifer Lopez,” Martinez joked with the journalists, despite the situation. “From the La Raza group we were 4 in total, and on the bus about 30 people.”

On the highway around the bus and trailer, were the passengers suitcases, clothes, shoes, musical instruments, amplifiers and lights destroyed by the fire. The authorities finished evacuating the dead, a process that took several hours, as they had to extract victims who were stuck in between instruments in the bus.

At 10:10 am, the Police authorities began to clear the highway that was unusable for 5 hours due to the accident. A line 3 kilometers long had formed between El Progreso and the point of the accident, in front of the entrance to the Las Orquideas neighborhood.

Four members of Las Chicas Samba lost their lives.

The Las Chicas Samba group was started three years ago. They lost four of the 20 people that made up the Ceibeña musical group. Five were injured, and in total, 11 members were involved in this tragic accident.

The rest of the Samba members were not in the bus. Some stayed behind in San Pedro Sula, and others, like Obdulio Leslin Sanchez Lopez, was in La Ceiba at the time. Sanchez Lopez, who is also the representative of Las Chicas Roland, arrived at the scene of the accident to identify the victims; he lamented the tragedy.