A teenager died and more than 20 people were injured when swarms of bees escaped from their hives after the van transporting them crashed into a lorry and overturned on a motorway near the resort of Marmaris, in southern Turkey.

Rescue workers, police, medics and beekeepers tried for more than an hour to release two people trapped inside the vehicle, their faces carpeted with angry bees.

One of the pair, aged 18, died in hospital from the combined effect of injuries sustained in the crash and multiple bee stings.

Three others were in intensive care at the Mugla state hospital. About twenty people needed treatment after they were stung as they tried to help.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of bees covering the van — they swarmed to wherever they saw a living being move. I was stung several times myself,” said Kenan Gurbuz, the local bureau chief of the Anatolia news agency, who was among the first on the scene.

“When I arrived there was a man on the ground — he had been undressed and needed treatment but the medics could not get to him for the bees. They had filled the ambulance and also stung one of the nurses.”

The ambulance and the men had to be disinfected before first aid could be administered while medics dodged the bees and tried to swat them with rags.

Murat Coban, a beekeeper, said: “A friend called and told us of the accident and asked for a team to go and help. We collected ten people and came over in a minibus. There are about 500 to 600 hives here.”

Beekeeping is an important industry in the Mediterranean region around Mugla province. The beekeepers involved in the crash had been camping in nearby forests throughout the spring and summer, tending to the insects, and were returning to their home villages when their vehicle crashed.

Television footage of the accident showed a number of men dressed in white jackets and beekeeping helmets climbing over the crash debris and beehives as they tried to get to the victims.

The rescue workers carried those hurt — hastily dressed in safety gear — on stretchers to waiting medics.

One of the rescue workers doused the crashed vehicles with water in an attempt to keep the bees at bay. The insects were further pacified by smoke in an operation that lasted for more than four hours.

At the hospital the victims’ clothes, still covered with bees, had to be stripped off carefully before any treatment could begin.

One of the injured was a doctor known to have an allergy to bees.

Afterwards, police with megaphones lined the roadside warning drivers approaching the area to close their windows to avoid being stung but, even so, a number of passengers needed hospital treatment.

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