Devastated families identify bus bodies

Relatives of the 28 people killed when a bus from Belgium crashed inside a Swiss tunnel faced the heartbreaking task of identifying the bodies ahead of their repatriation. Most of the dead were children.

Investigators believe the driver of the bus may have been reaching down to put on a DVD shortly before the crash.

A minute’s silence was held in Cork last night at a special reception to announce the opening of a three-day week route by Aer Lingus between the cityand Brussels.

Belgian ambassador Robert DeVriese said he was touched by the “remarkable outpouring” of sympathy from the Irish people who rang, texted, and emailed his embassy.

“Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to anyone. It puts everything else in perspective,” he said.

Mr Devriese said he received a phone call from Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin offering his sympathy.

“As you know, he recently went through the tragedy of losing a child himself.”

He said that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin had been in contact with him and it was likely the senior cleric would conduct a special Mass for the victims next Thursday in Donnybrook, Dublin.

Meanwhile, family members, some sobbing, were driven from a hotel in the southern Swiss town of Sion to the nearby morgue, where the bodies of some of the 22 schoolchildren and six adults killed in Tuesday’s crash were being kept.

“Where possible, the bodies will be shown to the families,” police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet said. “In some cases this is not possible because the bodies are too badly injured.”

Afterward, relatives visited the site of the crash inside the Tunnel de Geronde near the Swiss town of Sierre. Family members were seen carrying flowers to the site where 21 Belgians and seven Dutch were killed.

The tourist bus carrying 52 people hit a wall on Tuesday night less than an hour after heading home from a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps. Twenty-four other children were hurt, some seriously.

Bornet said authorities were working to release the bodies of all the victims as soon as possible. Some still had to be identified.

In Belgium, plans were being made to begin repatriating the bodies with military planes as early as last night, and authorities announced today would be a national day of mourning.

Investigations are under way to determine how a modern bus with two rested drivers and a tunnel considered safe could result in one of the deadliest highway crashes in Swiss history.

Olivier Elsig, prosecutor for the Swiss state of Valais, told a news conference that officials are looking at three possible causes — a technical problem with the bus, a health problem with the driver or human error.

Swiss and Belgian media reported that survivors of the crash claimed the driver had reached to change a DVD disc on the onboard entertainment system shortly before the crash. It was unclear whether that could have contributed to the crash, and neither police nor prosecutors could immediately be reached for comment on the report.

A Catholic chapel in Sierre was opened to allow the public to pay their respects to the victims