22 children killed and dozens more hurt in devastating Switzerland coach crash

~n/t~

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A catastrophic coach crash killed at least 22 children and six adults - after the vehicle veered, hit a kerb and then rammed into a concrete wall in a Swiss tunnel.

Many of the dead, mostly schoolchildren aged 12, are believed to have died instantly when the bus careered into an underpass wall on the A9 highway, near Sierre, Valais, close to the border with Italy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...h-22-Belgian-children-killed-dozens-hurt.html


photos at the link.

Heartbreaking. Sympathies to the families. :rose:
 
So tragic- kids that age are so sweet, I cannot imagine what the parents are feeling.

I do wonder if the driver could have had drugs in his system. Assume they will check that out. There is a lot of that. I recall at least two major airline disasters that were determined to have been caused by shoddy maintainence work by ground crews who came to work stoned.
 
So tragic- kids that age are so sweet, I cannot imagine what the parents are feeling.

I do wonder if the driver could have had drugs in his system. Assume they will check that out. There is a lot of that. I recall at least two major airline disasters that were determined to have been caused by shoddy maintainence work by ground crews who came to work stoned.

They are still checking it out. He certainly wasn't speeding, they have CCTV images to prove that. The coach was still fairly new and had a perfect maintenance track-record. But they are still checking whether the driver was taken ill or something else. I've read a rumour (but nothing confirmed) that he was helping to change a DVD.
Also all children were wearing their seatbelts, but the police themselves say that this was of no use in a crash of this size. All the casualties were at the front of the bus.

Everybody has been identified - the last ones yesterday evening. The reason it took so long is that some of the casualties were so horribly injured that they didn't show them to the parents, but had to rely on DNA.

For those who understand Dutch
www.standaard.be
www.gva.be
 
Further articles in today's newspapers. As per the spokesperson of the Swiss police, the driver was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and it's doesn't seem that the driver was changing a DVD as per interviews of the police with the children. So it remains unclear whether it was a technical fault or an illness. The autopsy hasn't been completed yet.
 

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