Europeupdated 35m ago2 min read
MapBus Crash In Lent Kills Child And Young Adult, Injures 13 In Eastern France
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Two people killed — a child and a young adult — in Lent, Ain. Sixteen others injured, some seriously, in the eastern France bus crash.
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Crash in Lent
A bus carrying 43 passengers, including 15 children, crashed at around 07:00 local time on Friday in the town of Lent in eastern France, killing one child and one young adult and leaving three people in a critical condition and 13 with minor injuries, local authorities said. Lent mayor Yves Cristin told French media the bus "left the road and hit a tree in the ditch," and photos circulating in French media showed a blue and white bus tilted in what appeared to be a ditch on the roadside.
The Bourg-en-Bresse prosecutor's office said the bus was travelling between Lyon and Bourg-en-Bresse, and it added that the driver was taken to hospital after sustaining injuries and had not yet been questioned by police. French education minister Édouard Geffray said the crash involved students and told reporters it was "always difficult when our children are victims of accidents of this nature," while emergency services deployed medical helicopters to take victims with serious injuries to a specialised hospital.
Officials describe response
Philippe Tabarot said more than 100 firefighters had been sent, and the local town hall was opened to provide shelter and coordinate with emergency services, the local mayor said. The Ain prefecture activated an emergency response plan, deploying rescue teams, police and two helicopters to the scene, and authorities urged the public to avoid the area while the investigation into the circumstances continued.
Yves Cristin told BFMTV that the incident was "an absolute tragedy that has struck our community," and he said the road was slightly damp and that he did not understand why the bus left its lane, crossed the road, and ended up in the opposite ditch. The Bourg-en-Bresse Public Prosecutor’s Office said the driver, who was in hospital, had not yet been able to be questioned, and it spoke of three people seriously injured while a homicide investigation was opened.
What remains unclear
The Ain prefecture reported "several victims" without providing a precise count of those affected or their ages, and it said the public should avoid the area to facilitate emergency operations. France 24 said the local prefecture described the accident as involving an intercity bus, while Cristin said a school bus had been involved, and the two accounts left the exact type of bus contested in the early reporting.
El Mundo said the death toll involved two minors and numerous injuries, while France 24 and DW both described two deaths, a child and a young adult, and 16 injured, with three of the injured in critical condition. The Bourg-en-Bresse prosecutor's office opened a homicide investigation, and the driver had not yet been questioned, leaving investigators to determine how the bus left the road and struck a tree in the roadside ditch.