YEREVAN. - Relatives of the eight passengers killed in a bus crash in Russia’s Tula on November 3 have gathered in Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport, waiting for the arrival of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry plane transporting the bodies of their relatives. 

The plane is expected to land at about 09:30 p.m., but the relatives have come to the lounge several hours earlier.

The uncle of killed Hrach Badalyan, 34, said he’s still shocked. After the accident it took him a long time to dare tell his relatives about the bad news.

Hrach’s three-year-old daughter hasn’t been told anything so far, and the girl is asking about her Dad every day.

Hrach had left for Russia to earn money for buying a house. His wife is expecting their second child.

There is a large number of Ambulance cars. Policemen and Armenia’s Deputy Chief of Police Samvel Hovhannisyan are also there.

Apart from the bodies of the eight killed passengers, the plane is also transporting other passengers, among them those who were seriously injured.

Over four dozen people were affected as a passenger bus, which was traveling from Moscow to Yerevan, crashed on Tuesday at around 2:10am local time, in Tula Oblast in Russia.

Seven people were killed on the spot while another passenger died in hospital. Nine of the injured are in serious condition.

There were 59 passengers on the bus, but no children were among them.

The injured were taken to the three nearby hospitals.

Russia has opened a criminal case into this bus crash, and on charges of “breaking the road traffic and vehicle operation rules.” A similar case has been filed in Armenia, too.

The Tula provincial court on Wednesday handed down a two-month arrest for the driver of this bus, Garnik Harutyunyan.