Moment of bus crash with truck in France 23.10.2015
Moment of bus crash with truck in France 23.10.2015
At least 43 people, among them dozens of French pensioners and a small child, killed after a bus collides with a lorry in southwestern France. Follow latest updates
Forty-three people, most of them French pensioners on a day-trip and one toddler, died in a horrific road accident in which their bus burst into flames after smashing into a lorry.
The excited pensioners set off before dawn for a day of walking, dining and good company in the Béarn region in foothills of the Pyrenees, a leisurely two hours drive away.
But just a few minutes after leaving their pretty village of Petit-Palais in the heart of Bordeaux’s wine-growing region, most of them were dead, burnt alive inside their bus after it smashed into a lorry and burst into flames.
“I’ve lost too many people,” said Jean Solans in the village where most of the 41 pensioners who died in the crash were from. He said he had lost a brother, neighbours and friends in the crash that happened at 7.30 am local time on Friday.
The driver of the truck also died, along with his three-year-old son who was sitting in the cab next to him when the bus hit his vehicle on a bend in the road that runs through vineyards where grapes for the world-renowned Saint-Emilion wine are grown.
