ROME, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The victims of the late Tuesday night bus crash that left 21 dead near the Italian city of Venice included three children, officials said on Wednesday.

Another child -- a three-year-old girl -- survived the crash but was severely burned and was in intensive care on Wednesday. Two other injured parties were also minors, officials said.

Venice prosecutors on Wednesday opened a formal investigation into the causes of the crash.

Luca Zaia, president of the region of Veneto, said on Wednesday that the "main hypothesis" is that the driver fell ill while driving, allowing the bus to lurch from an overpass and fall around ten meters into an empty area adjacent to railroad tracks, where it burst into flames on contact. The driver was among the 21 who perished in the crash.

Bruno Cherchi, the Venice prosecutor overseeing the probe, said on Wednesday that the authorities had already ruled out the possibility that the bus had come in contact with another vehicle.

"We are working on understanding the dynamics of the accident," Cherchi told reporters. "We know that the bus came in contact with the guardrail, slid along it for around 50 meters, and then it pushed further to the right through the guardrail and plummeted to the ground."

What is certain is that the bus swerved off an overpass on a highway between the Venice districts of Mestre and Marghera, where it was headed to a campground.

According to Cherchi, the process of identifying all the victims is difficult given that many of them were not carrying documents with them. According to media reports, at least seven of the 21 victims had been positively identified: aside from the driver, who was Italian, the deceased included five Ukrainian nationals and one German.

Of the 16 people hospitalized after the crash, three were minors, including the three-year-old girl who suffered severe burns.

"It appears that many of the passengers on the bus were young," Michele Di Bari, a spokesman from the office of Venice Prefect, told Xinhua. "Any death is a tragedy, but when the victims are youths, it makes it that much sadder."

The region of Veneto and the city of Venice had officially declared a state of mourning that would last until Friday, with all flags at half-mast across the northeastern Italian region.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, President Sergio Mattarella and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were among the officials who offered public condolences to the victims of the crash and their families.

The overpass and train lines impacted by the accident were temporarily closed late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday, but were re-opened and operating as normal by Wednesday afternoon local time. Enditem

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