One person died and forty-four are missing after a bus plunged from a bridge into the Oueme River in central Benin overnight, the interior minister said Sunday.

The driver of the bus, travelling from Lome to Niamey, lost control after hitting the railing of the bridge “before ending up at the bottom of the water”, Alassane Seidou said in a statement.

Nine survivors were taken to a hospital in Save, the nearest major city, and were in a “stable condition”.

No further details of the accident were released on Sunday evening, as operations continued to retrieve the bus from the river.

The authorities were using all means at their disposal to find those missing in the accident, said Seidou.

STM, the company that ran the bus service, offered its condolences to the families of the victims.

In its statement, it did not give a toll for the number of victims, saying it was waiting for the official conclusions.

The accident happened on the main Interstate 2 road, which crosses the country from the economic capital Cotonou to Malanville in the north, on the border with Niger.