Switzerland marks anniversary of Sierre bus crash

A memorial service was held last night at a church in Sierre, in the Swiss canton of Valais, where a year ago 28 people, including 22 children, died when a Belgian coach crashed in a tunnel, writes The Local’s Malcolm Curtis. Two drivers and four teachers died while 24 other pupils aged between 10 and 12 were injured in the collision as the bus, carrying 52 passengers from two schools, returned from a ski trip in the Val d’Anniviers region. The cause of the crash remains unknown despite extensive investigation. Politicians from Sierre joined the president of Valais’s cantonal government and diplomatic representatives from Belgium and the Netherlands for the ceremony at the Sainte-Croix church. In Belgium, the tragedy will be remembered at a ceremony today in Lommel, home to one of the schools involved, where a memorial work of art will be unveiled. At the Saint-Luc ski resort, where the pupils spent their holiday, a plaque with the first names of the child victims with an inscription in French and Dutch has been installed. At the request of some of the families, the names of the bus drivers were removed from the plaque, Le Temps reported. At 21.10 on March 13 last year, the bus hit a kerb and collided with a concrete wall at the end of an emergency turnout area in the Sierre tunnel. Rescuers recounted a “vision of horror”, with children unable to get off the bus because of the damage to the front of the vehicle. Investigators believe the coach was not travelling above the 100kph limit, but it is not clear why the bus veered out of the travel lane, with tests revealing that the driver was not drunk and did not suffer any sudden illness. At the time, Belgian transport minister Melchior Wathelet said Toptours, the company that ran the coach, had an “excellent reputation”. While most of the passengers were Belgian citizens, among the dead were six Dutch passengers and a boy with dual Belgian-British nationality.