Switzerland bus crash into tunnel wall is a sad tragedy

A tour bus carrying schoolchildren back home from a class trip in Swiss slammed head-on into a tunnel wall in the Swiss Alps. 22 Belgian pupils and six adults perished in the tragic bus crash.

Berne / NationalTurk – Switzerlands Federal Assembly held a minute of silence in honor of the victims of a bus accident in the south region of the country that killed 28 people, including 22 children. Also 24 people were seriously injured, including three children who went into a coma. Belgian authorities flew anxious parents and relatives to the site and called for a day of mourning in the country.

President of the Swiss Parliament Hansjorg Walter expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and feels moved by the tragic event.

Switzerland bus crash into tunnel wall is a sad tragedy

The accident occurred on early Wednesday when a bus crashed into the wall of a tunnel in the Valais region of Switzerland inside the 1.5-mile Tunnel de Geronde on a highway near the southern town of Sierre, a gateway to the Val d’Anniviers tourist region.

The bus was carrying 52 people, most of them school children aged about 12 from Lommel and Heverlee in Flanders. It was heading back to Belgium from a skiing vacation camp in Val d’Anniviers, a ski resort in Switzerland at about 1,600 metres above sea level in the Valais Alps that borders France. It was also transporting 10 students from the Netherlands, a Pole and a German.

The families of the victims traveled on Wednesday to Geneva to recognize the corpses, according to Belgium’s Ministry of Defense.

Bus crash in Switzerland, 3 nations mourn the loss of young lives

Investigators were still trying to determine how a modern bus, a rested driver and a seemingly safe tunnel could produce one of the deadliest highway crashes in Swiss history. Police stated 21 of those killed were Belgian and seven were Dutch. Twenty-four other children were hurt.