All victims of fatal Swiss bus crash identified
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E-mail Xinhua, March 16, 2012
Swiss police authorities on Thursday said they have identified all the victims of a deadly bus crash which claimed 28 lives on Tuesday night in southwest Switzerland.
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The wreckage of a bus is seen after it crashed inside a motorway tunnel in Sierre, in the Swiss canton of Valais on March 14, 2012. Twenty-eight people, including 22 children, returning from a skiing holiday died in a bus accident in Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais, the Swiss news agency SDA-ATS reported March 14. [Xinhua/AFP] |
Belgium has declared Friday a day of national mourning. Bodies of the victims will be sent back home by plane on the same day. Two C-130 transport planes belonging to the Belgian army have already arrived at the Sion airport on Thursday evening.
Those who have survived the accident have already also begun to return home.
The tourist bus carrying 52 people hit a tunnel wall Tuesday night less than an hour after heading home from a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps.
Twenty-eight people, including 22 children aged around 12 and six adults, were killed in the accident. The other twenty-four children were injured. Three of the injured are still in critical conditions, according to medical staff.
Local media on Thursday reported that the driver of the bus was trying a change a disc on the bus' entertainment system shortly before the deadly crash. But the reports have not yet been confirmed by investigators.
Prosecutor Olivier Elsig said surveillance cameras in the tunnel had recorded the accident. He told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that the children on the bus were wearing seat belts, and that no other vehicle was involved in the accident.
Elsig said investigators were looking at three possible causes for the crash - a technical problem of the bus, a health problem with the driver, or human error.
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