Coach Crash Parents Head To Swiss Alps - Sky News

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4:26pm UK, Wednesday March 14, 2012

The parents of children killed and injured in a bus crash as they returned from a ski trip in Switzerland are being taken to the accident scene.

The devastated relatives gathered at a school in Lommel, Belgium, in the early hours as news began to filter through.

Hours later they boarded a convoy of buses along with the town's mayor and were taken to a military base to be flown to the Swiss Alps.

The bus was carrying 52 people, mostly children, when it crashed. Twenty-eight on board were killed, including 22 children. Of the 24 injured, three are reported to be in a coma.

Sky's Robert Nisbet, at the school, said: "Family members started gathering here early in the morning when they first heard the news.

"The deputy mayor Kris Verduyckt said 22 children from this school were on the coach trip. They don't know how many of them are dead or injured. There is obviously a great amount of concern here.

Parents of the young victims board a bus headed for the military airport in Melsbroek

"The deputy mayor tells me the school is obviously being bombarded with telephone calls from worried parents and relatives but at the moment they say that details are coming in to them slowly so they are asking people to be patient.

"But they have also set up a crisis centre here at the school with psychologists on hand to speak to anyone who may need additional assistance."

Nisbet said the school in Lommel is on the Dutch border and many of the children on the trip were in fact Dutch.

"Lommel is really a suburb of Eindhoven in the Netherlands," he explained.

Children from another school in Heverlee, which is close to Leuven in the east of Belgium, were also on the trip, he added.

"A number of children from there - many more than this school (in Lommel) we understand - were also on the ski trip," said Nisbet.

A photo taken from the children's Swiss Alps ski trip blog

Parents had been keeping in touch with their children via updates posted on a blog set up especially for the holiday.

The blog showed what a good time the boys and girls, aged between 11 and 12, were having on their week away.

The children wrote about skiing black and red runs, enjoying barbecues and walks and missing their parents.

On Monday, a teacher posted an update, apologising for the late report: "It was an extremely busy day, I keep it [the blog] short.

"After skiing, we enjoyed the second outdoor BBQ of snow this break. With full stomachs, we spent about an hour on the beautiful walk to hotel Weisshorn."

The entry continued later: "... after a shower and a feast, including chips, we had to prepare for the evening.

"We got the ball rolling with the Muppet Show... after the thanksgiving evening there was dancing and at exactly 10pm, they were in bed."

It concluded: "Wednesday morning we'll appear all together (hopefully not too early)."

Nisbet said: "The ski trip had just finished, this convoy of buses had just left the resort when they went into the tunnel and this accident happened."