Four teenage children were killed and several critically injured after a train collided with a school bus in southern France.
The country's interior ministry confirmed the deaths, while local media reported that seven others had been seriously injured, with 12 more suffering less serious injuries.
The collision occurred on Thursday afternoon on a railway crossing in the small town of Millas, according to a tweet from the Pyrenees-Orientales authority who operated the rail. Millas is located in southeastern France, near the border with Spain.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and transport minister Elizabeth Borne said they would be traveling immediately to the site of the crash.
Describing the crash as a "terrible accident" on Twitter, Borne reported that “emergency and public services are fully mobilized."
While speaking later from the area, the prime minister said the “circumstances of this terrible drama are still undetermined”.
Around 70 firefighters, 10 ambulances and four helicopters responded to the crash. At the time of the collision, the bus was taking children home from the Christian Bourquin school in Millas. It was carrying around 20 children aged between 11 and 15, local authorities said.
“All my thoughts for the victims of this terrible accident involving a school bus, as well as their families. The state is fully mobilized to help them," President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet.
Source: nydailynews.com
