43 dead in French bus crash

● The bus and a truck collided near a forested bend on a two- lane road cut into a hillside near Puisseguin in the Gironde region, about 60 km east of Bordeaux, the local prefect’s office said

At least 41 people on a bus carrying elderly day- trippers were killed early on Friday when the bus hit a truck head- on and caught fire, in France’s worst road crash in more than 30 years.

Two people, including a young boy, died in the truck. A total of eight people were injured.

The bus and the truck collided near a forested bend on a two- lane road cut into a hillside near Puisseguin in the Gironde region, about 60 km east of Bordeaux, the local prefect’s office said in a statement.

TV footage showed two blackened vehicles, with the bus facing the woodtransporter’s trailer, the truck’s cab skewed to one side, and scorched vegetation around the site, which was sealed off by the police.

The bus was carrying about 50 pensioners south to the Bearn region from their homes in the village of Petit Palais and surrounding hamlets. The crash occurred just a few minutes after the pension- ers had boarded the bus.

Among the dead were the driver of the articulated lorry and a young boy who was in the cab, according to the local prefect’s office. News reports said the child was about three years old.

The driver of the bus was among the survivors, who were able to exit through the front door he opened, according to a source close to an inquiry that was under way within hours.

The source said the truck apparently veered onto the wrong side of the road as it came around a bend.

A spokesperson for the interior ministry said that, as far as he could tell, all the bus passengers were French and from the region.