Bus crash in Switzerland kills 22 children, 6 adults returning from ski holiday

[Liberal_in_LA]

I thought buses could take pretty hard impacts. I guess not



A bus carrying 53 Belgians, most of them children returning from a skiing holiday, crashed Tuesday night inside a tunnel on a highway in Switzerland, killing 22 children and six adults, authorities said.

Twenty-four children were injured in the crash and airlifted to a hospital, officials said.

No other vehicle was involved in the accident in southern Switzerland. A police report said the bus hit a concrete wall of an emergency parking bay in the A9 Highway tunnel.

"The frontal impact was extremely violent. The front of the bus was heavily damaged, blocking the occupants," the report said. Pictures from Belgian TV showed the front of the bus demolished.

The bus was reported to be one of three carrying students, all about 12 years old, from two schools in Belgium. They were returning from a week's skiing in the Swiss Alps in the Val d’Anniviers near the Italian border.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/03/bus-crash-in-switzerland-kills-22-children-6-adults.html

[hedgehog]

1. I spent some time in this area a while back -

if this is the tunnel I'm thinking of, it's nothing special - I mean we aren't talking 38 miles though a mountain, more like what you'd find along the Pennsylvania turnpike.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Yeah, I must have driven through it too - it's a bypass for the town of Sierre

which they built as a tunnel, rather than take up land in the Rhone valley bottom.

The severity of the crash comes from the wall ending the escape lane - somehow the bus got into that lane at full speed, and couldn't brake before hitting the solid wall.