POPE CHILE BUS DOOM!

Smoke but no fire on bus during papal visit

SANTIAGO, Chile - Where there is smoke, there is normally fire - but not always. Journalists covering Pope Francis’s visit in Santiago, Chile, added another tale Jan. 16 to their oral history of papal-trip misadventures. As a large tour bus carrying dozens of journalists passed under a bridge that was too low, the sound of breaking metal and crunching plastic filled the air. The slow-moving bus stopped. Then it went forward again, and more of the same terrible sounds were heard from the roof of the bus. Most of the journalists, photographers and TV crews working on the bus were so tired after covering six events that they didn’t react immediately. Then came the smoke, which quickly began to fill the bus. “Open the door,” shouted Salvatore Scolozzi, press handler with the Vatican Press Office. Within seconds, everyone had evacuated the bus. Journalists witnessed police carrying off the road large pieces of debris that previously were part of the roof of the bus. The large air conditioners on top of the bus had apparently been torn off by the impact, but nothing had fallen inside the bus. Source