By Le Figaro with AFP
Published
4 hours ago,
Update 1 hour ago
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The provisional report shows around a hundred people involved. The prefecture specifies that “two buses transported middle and high school students of German nationality for one, and French for the other”.
An accident involving a heavy goods vehicle and two coaches transporting French and German students on a school trip left 23 injured on Friday afternoon on the A16 in Calais, according to an updated report from the prefecture.
The accident occurred around 4:30 p.m. at the ring road linking the cross-Channel port of Calais to the motorway. The cause and circumstances of this accident were not immediately known, the prefecture said. The two coaches carried “middle and high school students on a school trip”for the first of German students from Frankfurt and for the second of French students from Essonne, the prefecture specified in a press release in the evening.
An updated report shows 141 people involved, including 21 lightly injured, plus “a young French girl and a young German man (who) were more seriously injured”, victims of an open fracture and stomach aches requiring a thorough examination. In a first press release, the prefecture reported “of a seriously injured person”while emphasizing that his vital prognosis was not “not committed”.
“Serious accident”
Those involved but not injured were transported “towards a room made available by the Calais town hall where (they) are currently taken care of by Civil Protection” and medical surveillance is put in place for the night. A medical-psychological emergency unit is also deployed. “Everything is done to welcome young people and their supervisors in the best possible conditions”adds the prefecture.
A bus from Germany and another from Essonne are on their way to pick them up. According to an AFP journalist who went to the scene, the heavy goods vehicle was hit by a coach from the German company RheinMainz-Express, itself hit by a French double-decker coach while they were traveling from from the port terminal. Firefighters, SAMU, national police and civil protection were mobilized to take care of the victims. The ring road remained closed between the port and the A16 for several hours, blocking hundreds of vehicles.
The Minister of National Education Nicole Belloubet deplored a “serious road accident”. “My thoughts are with all the injured passengers, to whom I express my full support”she wrote on X.
