Wednesday’s bus crash near Karpalak, on the Skopje – Tetovo highway, which killed at least 14 people is one of the most tragic accidents in Macedonia’s recent history.

In the early years of its independence, Macedonia suffered two passenger plane disasters. In March 1993, a Fokker 100 plane operated by the Paler company crashed while taking off the Skopje airport, killing 86 of the 97 passengers on board.

In November the same year, an Avioimpeks flight with 115 people on board a Yak-42D plane crashed near the Ohrid airport after being diverted from Skopje due to the poor weather – only one survived.

President Boris Trajkovski and nine members of his staff and flight crew died in 2004, when the Government owned King Air plane crashed during landing in Mostar, Bosnia.

Two helicopters operated by the Macedonian army had crashed with tragic outcomes – one during the 2001 war after hitting a concrete pylon at the Popova Sapka ski resort – the pilot and the engineer were killed. In 2008, 11 Macedonian army peacekeepers returning from their mission in Bosnia in a transport helicopter died after crashing in poor weather conditions near Skopje.

A Cessna plane narrowly missed a crowd while crash-landing near Ohrid in 2008. The pilot and three passengers were killed and a little girl which was in a car it hit escaped unharmed.

In 2009, the Ilinden passenger boat, carrying tourists from Bulgaria, sank on lake Ohrid. Fifteen were killed.

Two summer storms also caused major loss of life in two consecutive years. Rains caused a mudslide in the village of Sipkovica in August 2015, killing six persons. And the next year, also in August, a major rainstorm swept away vehicles driving along the Skopje ring-road and houses in near-by areas, killing 22.