YEREVAN. - After the tragic Armenian bus crash in Russia’s Tula province, Armenia’s Ministry of Transport and Communication will strengthen the control over passenger transportations. Minister of Transport and Communication Gagik Beglaryan, who arrived in Yerevan together with part of the accident victims via Russian Emergency Situations Ministry plane, told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am.

According to the Minister, the new draft law will be introduced next Thursday at the government session and then in the parliament.

Responding to the question on why such law hadn’t been adopted earlier, the Minister said that the country’s authorities tried to be as liberal as possible with regard to international transportations. According to him, the acting law was adopted 7-8 years ago and there were two types of carriers then: regular and irregular. “The latter actually had nothing to do with the state,” Beglaryan said.  

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.