Belgium holds its breath in the face of a serious fatal train accident. Several people have died and others have been injured this Tuesday after a collision between a passenger train and a school minibus in the Belgian town of Buggenhout. The fatal crash took place at 8:15 a.m. and at the point of the accident there is a large emergency device and medical personnel.
The event, which occurred in this Flemish city in the north of the country, took place after the school vehicle accessed the train tracks when the level crossing was already closed. This is the information conveyed by the railway infrastructure operating company Infrabel and local media such as .
According to the aforementioned Belgian media, the school bus was hit by a train when it was at a level crossing in the vicinity of Stationsstraat. At the moment the complete toll of fatalities has not been revealed, but there would be several of them.
A hundred train passengers and 10 people in the minibus
There were 7 students and two adults traveling in the minibus, the latter being the driver and the accompanying teacher. According to the aforementioned information, the dimensions of the school transport are due to the fact that it transported students with special needs. On the other hand, the local press also reports that the hundred passengers who were on the train had abandoned it unharmed.
While waiting to provide more details of the accident, the Buggenhout councilor, Geert Hermans, has told the newspaper that the school transport would have left a street and crossed onto the train tracks despite the fact that the barriers and light signals at the level crossing were working correctly.
—Breaking news, expanded—
