The Sierre coach crash occurred on 13 March 2012 near Sierre, Switzerland, when a coach carrying school teachers and pupils crashed into a wall in the Sierre Tunnel. Of the 52 people on board, 28 were killed in the crash, including both drivers, all four teachers, and 22 of the 46 children. The other 24 pupils, all aged between 10 and 12, were injured, including three who were hospitalised with serious brain and chest injuries.[citation needed]
The coach was one of three operated by the Aarschot-based Top Tours company and was transporting mostly Belgian school teachers and students from a skiing holiday in Val d'Anniviers back to their two schools in Belgium. It crashed at around 9.15 pm CET while travelling on the A9 motorway near Sierre, in the southern canton of Valais.
It was Switzerland's second-worst road accident in history and the country's worst in a motorway tunnel.[2][3][4] The investigation into the crash initially closed inconclusively in May 2013, having ruled out a number of factors that had been the subject of media speculation but failing to identify a cause.[5] A further public investigation, closing at the end of June 2014, attributed the crash to a non-criminal error on the part of the coach driver.[6] Media speculation has continued.[7]
Circumstances
The passengers, four teachers and 46 pupils from Saint-Lambertus school in Heverlee, Flemish Brabant, and 't Stekske primary school in Lommel, Limburg, were returning home with two other schools originating from Beersel and Haasrode, Flemish Brabant, having spent the previous few days at a skiing resort in Val d'Anniviers in the Swiss Alps.[8]
The crash occurred shortly after 9 pm local time (CET) on 13 March 2012, when the coach, while in the Sierre Tunnel, lost control, veered, slammed into a curb and then struck a concrete wall head-on, at the end of an emergency turnout area.[9] The front portion of the vehicle was seriously damaged, initially trapping some survivors inside for some time; the side and rear windows of the coach had to be smashed by emergency workers in order to gain access to the trapped passengers.[9]
Rescuers described the scene as "apocalyptic" and some became distressed as they fought to remove dead and injured children from the wreckage. Eight air ambulances and a dozen road ambulances were used to send injured victims directly to several hospitals for treatment.[10] The most seriously injured children were sent directly to hospitals in Bern and Lausanne for treatment.[citation needed]
The coach was one of three hired by the group; the other two reached Belgium safely.[11] Among the passengers aboard the crashed bus were 39 Belgians, ten Dutch children, one German child, one British child, and one Polish child.[12]
A memorial inaugurated three years after the drama of Sierre.A monument in memory of the 28 victims, including 22 children, who died in the March 2012 coach accident in Valais.Auguste Piccard Space in Sierre with a circle of trees above the tunnel.
Passengers
Most of the passengers aboard the coach were Belgian nationals. Six of the 10 Dutch passengers were killed, as well as one schoolboy with dual Belgian-British nationality.[13][14][15]
The exact cause of the crash was never completely determined.[6] Investigators eventually concluded the driver of the bus made an error in handling the bus, but could not elaborate as to the specifics of the error or why the driver made it.[16][6] Tests revealed the driver was not intoxicated with alcohol, did not suffer a heart attack or any other sudden illness, and prosecutors stated he was not exceeding the 100km/h (62 mph) speed limit at the time of the crash.[17] Experts have narrowed the cause of the crash to either driver fatigue or some sort of undetected medical issue.[18] Police said that the coach, operated by Aarschot-based Top Tours, a company with an "excellent reputation", was a modern and well-maintained vehicle, and that the children had all been wearing the fitted seatbelts at the time of impact.[19] The inconclusive outcome of the investigations into the accident was met with anger from parents of the victims.[6]
Both drivers and all four teachers upon the coach died in the accident. However, 24 of the 46 children aboard the vehicle survived and some were able to provide witness statements.
The design of the turnout area, which ended abruptly in a concrete wall, contributed to the severity of the crash.
This accident was reminiscent of the 1988 Måbødalen bus accident in Norway, where a Swedish bus whose brakes had failed collided with the concrete arch at the exit of a long and very steep tunnel.
Reactions
Belgium declared a day of national mourning on 16 March 2012 in memory of the 28 people who died in the crash, including 21 Belgian nationals, with flags being flown at half-mast and a minute's silence being observed. Peter Vanvelthoven, the mayor of Lommel, whose school lost 15 of its 22 pupils and both of the teachers aboard the coach, announced a memorial service the next week in the town, with attendees including the Belgian royal family and Prince Willem-Alexander and Maxima of the Netherlands.[20]
On 18 November 1993, just after midnight, a minibus was involved in a fatal collision with a maintenance vehicle on the M40 motorway near Warwick, England. The minibus was transporting 14 children home to Worcestershire from a school trip to the Royal Albert Hall in London when it veered into the rear of the motorway maintenance lorry which was stationary on the hard shoulder. Twelve of the children, and their teacher who was driving, died in the crash, which is one of the worst on the British road network. The two survivors sustained minor injuries, as did the people in the motorway maintenance lorry.
The Måbødalen bus accident or Måbø Canyon bus accident was a bus crash on 15 August 1988 during the descent from Hardangervidda into the Måbø Valley on the way to Bergen, Norway. The bus collided with the concrete arch at the exit of the Måbø Tunnel on Norwegian National Road 7. Of the 34 passengers aboard, 15 were killed. In addition, the bus driver died from his injuries 12 days after the crash.
The Blackheath train accident occurred at 7:03 a.m. on 25 August 2010 when a Metrorail commuter train crashed into a minibus taxi on the Buttskop Road level crossing in Blackheath, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The minibus was carrying fourteen children to school; nine died on the scene and five were hospitalised. One of the injured children died two days later in the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. The minibus driver was also hospitalised; there were no injuries aboard the train.
Express Motors was a bus and coach hire company based in Penygroes, Gwynedd. The company operated public bus services in the Caernarfon, Porthmadog, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Bangor and Llandudno areas, as well as long-distance TrawsCambria service T2 between Bangor and Aberystwyth.
The Kallar Kahar school bus accident was a school bus road accident that occurred on 27 September 2011 near the town of Kallar Kahar in the Chakwal District of Punjab, Pakistan. 37 people, mostly school students, were killed in the disaster.
The Sierre Tunnel is a tunnel near Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. It is part of the A9 Autobahn and is located between Sierre and Sierre-Est-Ouest.
Events in the year 2012 in Belgium.
The Beaune coach crash occurred on 31 July 1982 on the French A6 motorway near Beaune, in the Côte-d’Or département of east-central France. It is the second deadliest road traffic collision in France's history after the 2016 Nice truck attack. 53 people died, including 46 children. Most of the victims were on board a coach that caught fire as a result of the collision. The coach passengers were from Crépy-en-Valois in the Oise département of Picardy, northern France.
The Hermalle-sous-Huy train collision was a collision between a passenger train and a freight train in Hermalle-sous-Huy, Belgium, on 5 June 2016. At least three people were killed and 36 others were injured, nine of them seriously.
The 2017 Verona bus crash was a traffic collision that happened around midnight at night of 20–21 January 2017 on the A4 motorway at San Martino Buon Albergo, near Verona, in Italy. A coach that was transporting Hungarian high school students and their teachers back from a skiing trip in France collided with the highway traffic barrier, crashed into a bridge pylon, and then caught fire.
A tourist bus carrying 50 passengers, mostly students from Bestlink College of the Philippines in Quezon City who were on a field trip, lost its brakes and crashed into an electricity pole in Tanay, Rizal, killing 15 passengers including the driver.
↑ Denis Balibouse; Philip Blenkinsop (14 March 2012). "Swiss bus crash kills dozens". Reuters. Archived from the original on 15 March 2012.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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