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07:33, 15-Dec-2017
Four French schoolchildren killed as train ploughs into bus
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Four adolescents were killed when a train smashed into a school bus on a
level crossing outside the town of Perpignan in southwestern France on
Thursday.
Images from the scene showed the bus split in two, with a long
line of emergency vehicles on an approach to the crossing.
Another 20 people
were injured in the crash, 11 of them seriously, according to French Prime
Minister Edouard Philippe, who traveled immediately to the scene.
Most of
the injured were schoolchildren aboard the bus, aged 13-17.
Philippe told
reporters the authorities were focused on getting accurate information to
families, a process "made difficult by the question of identification of
those who have died and some of the injured."
A crisis coordination center
has been set up at Millas town hall on Perpignan's western outskirts, about
850 kilometers (530 miles) from Paris.
According to local media reports, the
bus was transporting pupils from the town's Christian Bourquin
college.
"All my thoughts (are with) the victims and their
families," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter.
Rescue workers are seen on the site of collision between a train and school bus in
Millas, France. /Reuters Photo
Rescue workers are seen on the site of collision between a train and school bus in Millas, France. /Reuters Photo
The cause of
the crash is unknown, pending a full investigation, officials said.
The bus
and train drivers both survived and will be interviewed by police.
The
train was carrying 25 passengers and travelling at 80kmh, the regulatory
speed for the section of track where the collision occurred, a spokeswoman
for the national SNCF railway told Reuters.
Three train passengers sustained
relatively minor injuries, according to the interior ministry.
Witnesses
had reported that the barriers of the crossing were down at the moment of
impact, the SNCF spokeswoman said, adding that all such preliminary
information was "subject to confirmation" by investigators.
France has
suffered several serious rail accidents in recent decades. One of the
deadliest was in 1988, when a commuter train heading into Gare de Lyon in Paris crashed into a stationary train, killing 56 people, after its brakes
failed.
8668km
Source(s): Reuters