School Bus Crashes Into Tree in Eastern France, Killing 2 and Injuring 16, Including a 7-Year-Old Girl
LENT, France — A regional bus carrying students crashed in eastern France on Friday morning, killing two people, including a 7-year-old girl, and injuring 16 others, four of them seriously.
The bus was traveling from Lyon to Bourg-en-Bresse when it left the D22 road at the entrance to the town of Lent, in the Ain department, at about 7:30 a.m. local time, and struck a tree in a roadside ditch. The bus was carrying 49 passengers, including 23 minors, according to the Bourg-en-Bresse prosecutor's office. The two people killed were a 7-year-old girl, a Bosnian national, and an 18-year-old man, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot confirmed after visiting the scene. Of the 16 injured, four were in serious condition, two with their lives still at risk. (An earlier prefecture briefing had put the figures at 43 passengers, 15 children and 16 injured; the prosecutor's office updated them in the afternoon.)
Ain prefect Louis-Xavier Thirode told broadcaster BFM that preliminary blood tests on the bus driver found no traces of alcohol or drugs. The prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into suspected road homicide and aggravated road traffic injuries. Prosecutor Karine Malara said the driver told investigators in his first interview that he may have fallen asleep before the bus crossed the road and that he woke up on the other side; the driver was hospitalised with leg injuries. Lent Mayor Yves Cristin told French media that the bus "left the road and hit a tree in the ditch," adding that the road was a little wet and there was no fog.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and President Emmanuel Macron expressed their thoughts to the victims' families and the injured. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said earlier that students aboard were traveling to middle and high schools in the area.
Source: Prefecture of Haute-Saône
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Photo: 图：法国杜省的杜河谷地，上索恩省客车事故发生地一带。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0。 / Photo: The Doubs valley in eastern France. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
