SIMFEROPOL, July 17. /TASS/. Bus service from Crimea to mainland Russia has been restored but riders will have to make transfers, Oleg Kryuchkov, adviser to the head of Crimea, said on Monday.
"[We’re talking about] bus service to Yuzhnaya station (near the city of Kerch, closest to the Crimean Bridge - TASS). From there, trains to Temryuk (nearest Krasnodar Region town to the bridge - TASS). [Riders will then need to] transfer again to buses and then to their final destination," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
He pointed out that passenger car traffic will soon be able to leave Crimea via ferry, but truck traffic can only exit the peninsula via the new regions, detouring to the north around the Sea of Azov.
"Auto traffic [will be channeled as follows]: [first] cars will be directed to Bagerovo airport (a site in Kerch, the nearest city on the peninsula to the Crimean Bridge - TASS), [then motorists] will be issued boarding passes and will proceed to the ferry slip. Or [motorists can travel via] an alternative route [through the new regions]," Kryuchkov wrote on Telegram.
On Monday morning, Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov said that traffic on the Crimean Bridge had been suspended due to an emergency near the 145th pillar. He did not specify the cause of the incident. The Russian Transport Ministry said that spans on the roadway were damaged but the pillars remained intact. There is no official information yet on the causes of the accident. A man and a woman from the Belgorod Region were killed in the incident, while their teenage daughter was injured, Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.