Train, Bus Collide in France Killing 7 Children
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ALLINGES, France — A train slammed into a bus carrying schoolchildren at a railroad crossing in the French Alps yesterday, killing seven children and injuring 24 people, regional officials said.
The bus was carrying 50 middle-school students, five adults, and a driver on a field trip to a historic village on the shores of Lake Geneva, according to the gendarmes service in the Haute-Savoie region. The collision ripped off part of the bus’s rear and caused its roof to cave in.
The seven dead were all children on the bus, according to the regional administration. Three of the injured bus passengers were in serious condition. Several passengers on the train, on a route between Evian in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also had light injuries. Authorities had originally said 30 people were injured.
The accident occurred near the town of Allinges, near the Swiss border. The SNCF train authority said it appeared the train crossing was functioning normally at the time of the accident, and that investigations were under way to find out the cause of the accident.
