Agonising wait for parents after deadly Swiss bus crash involving students

Twenty-four pupils from a tiny Belgian Catholic school along with their teacher and a ski instructor, were aboard the coach when it swerved and smashed at high speed into a concrete wall in the tunnel with 52 people aboard.

The children were returning from a skiing holiday organised by the Flemish Catholic school system.
The others came from another school in the north-eastern town of Lommel near the Dutch border.

All six adults on the coach - the two drivers and two with each school party - were killed.

Of the 24 pupils from the Sint-Lambertus school, "16 suffered different injuries, some broken arms or legs, but they are alive," said De Gendt.

But the school had "no news" of the remaining eight, added the priest, who knew the children well as he had been preparing them to take communion.

In the Lommel school, fatalities were expected to be higher as the students had been sitting at the mangled front of the bus.

Of the 22 children from the Stekske school, five had phoned their parents but there was no news of 17 others, deputy mayor Kris Verduyckt was quoted as saying.

As families prepared to board the plane to Switzerland, many remained in the dark over the fate of their children.

"The uncertainty's terrible," said Catholic Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard after meeting agonised families in Heverlee's Sint-Lambertus school on the outskirts of Leuven.

"It's almost as bad as bad news. Families are saying 'I hope my child's on the right side.'"

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