Photo Gallery Tragedy in Switzerland
A coach carrying two Belgian school classes returning from a skiing trip crashed into the wall of a tunnel in Switzerland on Tuesday night, killing 28 people, including 22 children. Rescue workers described the scenes that greeted them as "shocking."
Rescue workers spent all night at the scene of the crash, which ocurred at the entrance to the A9 motorway tunnel in the Swiss canton of Valais. Eight helicopters and dozens of ambulances brought injured passengers to four hospitals in the surrounding area.
Two seriously injured passengers were taken to a hospital in Lausanne in the west of Switzerland while another was taken to the city of Bern.
Over 200 personnel, among them paramedics, doctors and police were at the scene of the crash, which happened at this entrance to the A9 motorway tunnel in western Switzerland.
The children in the coach were aged about 12 and came from the towns of Lommel and Heverlee in Flanders, northern Belgium. The coach transporting 52 people crashed late on Tuesday evening in the Swiss canton of Valais, which borders Italy, police told a news conference early on Wednesday.
The coach was traveling on a highway towards Sitten from Siders when it crashed into the tunnel wall.
Here, workers salvage the coach, which was carrying two school classes.
"This incident will shock all of Belgium," said Jan Luykx, the Belgian ambassador to Switzerland, pictured here checking his mobile phone after a news conference.
"It is an event which will really shake the whole Belgian population when they wake up this morning to such extremely sad news," Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders told French radio station Europe 1. This photo shows the wreckage of the bus.
The wreckage of the coach was transported from the scene for closer examination.
Belgian Transport Minster Melchior Wathelet said it was unlikely that the driver of the coach had been tired or fallen asleep.
On Tuesday night, police only spoke of serious injuries following the crash. But on Wednesday morning, authorities confirmed that 28 passengers had died, including the two bus drivers.
