Reason for bus crash baffles Swiss
SWITZERLAND: Swiss investigators were at a loss yesterday to explain why a Belgian bus carrying a Flemish school ski party slammed into the wall of a motorway tunnel in the Swiss Alps, killing 22 children and six adults and inflicting a new national trauma on Belgium.
Twenty-two of the pupils, aged 11 or 12 and from two schools, were injured. Three were in comas last night after the crash on Wednesday evening that the chief police officer on the scene described as a ‘‘vision of the apocalypse’’.
Seven of the dead were Dutch, from a school at Lommel, near the Netherlands border. The rest were Belgians, from both Lommel and Heverlee, a suburb of Leuven. The injured included three Dutch, a Pole and a German. Only two children escaped injury.
Belgium Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo flew with cabinet ministers to Sion to accompany the parents, many of whom did not know for more than 12 hours whether their children were among the dead.
Di Rupo announced national mourning. ‘‘It is a black day for our country. When we lose a family member there are no words, because the pain is so great that there is nothing to relieve the pain,’’ he said.
He called the accident ‘‘an absolute drama in scale and the number of people affected’’. Belgium Foreign Minister Didier Reynders called the accident incomprehensible.
Identification had been difficult because of the mutilation of the victims and because all the adults on the coach – two Belgian drivers and four school staff – were killed when the bus struck a kerb in the Sierre tunnel, swerved into an es- cape lane and smashed almost head-on into a wall. The children were wearing seatbelts but the force of the impact ripped out the seats, slamming them forwards.
Rescue workers toiled through the night cutting the victims from the mangled bus which had set out from the resort of Val d’anniviers and was on the A9 motorway on the drive back to Belgium.
Seasoned emergency workers were stunned by the horror of what they found, said Jean-pierre Dellarz, the doctor in charge of the operation. ‘‘The emotional impact was extremely hard. The staff have been given psychological care.’’
Valais police commander Christian Varone said it was an ‘‘unprecedented tragedy’’.
There was no clue to the cause of Switzerland’s worst bus disaster, said Olivier Elsig, the Valais prosecutor in charge of the investigation.
The bus, which had been travelling in a loose convoy with two others from Belgian schools, was a recent model in good condition. Surveillance video showed that no other vehicle was involved and that the road surface was good.
The bus did not appear to have been exceeding the 100kmh limit, though that is to be confirmed by its trip recorder. An autopsy was being carried out on Raymond Theunis, 54, the driver. He and his relief assistant had complied with regulations on rest periods and their company had a good reputation, officials said.
News of the disaster sparked frantic scenes at the two schools in the morning as parents desperate for news wept in one another’s arms.
The Swiss explained why there had been a long delay in sending details of the crash to the Flanders authorities.
‘‘There were no adults who survived who could give us information,’’ said Varone. ‘‘We could not send casualty lists without being absolutely certain on identities.’’
Survivors telephoned their parents while local Belgian authorities gathered photographs to email to the Swiss police. Two of the dead children remained unidentified almost 24 hours after the crash.
King Albert II, Queen Paola and di Rupo went to the Melsbroek military airport to comfort the families who took a government Airbus to Sion.
Belgian town a scene of anguish
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