Seven die in rail crossing crash
A train slammed into a bus carrying school children at a railroad crossing in the French Alps killing seven children and injuring 24 people, regional officials said.
The bus was carrying 50 students of middle school age, five adults and a driver on a field trip to a historic village on the shores of Lake Geneva, according to police in the Haute-Savoie region. The collision ripped off part of the rear end of the bus and caused its roof to cave in.
The seven dead were all children who had been riding on the bus, according to the regional administration. Three of the injured bus passengers were in serious condition.
Several passengers on the train were slightly injured. The train was on a route between Evian in France and Geneva. 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 determine the cause of the accident.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, the junior minister for transport, Dominique Bussereau, and the head of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, visited the site.
President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to the victims during a speech on education.
"All we can do, unfortunately, is hope that there will be as few victims as possible," Sarkozy said. The president's office said he planned to visit the crash site.
The crash was among the most deadly accidents in years at France's level crossings.
