Former Swiss Life finance director’s sentence cut to 22 months, suspended
Geneva gripped by court case over couple’s involvement in girlfriend’s death
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A judge in Sion this week sentenced the driver of a van that crashed into a military vehicle on the A9 autoroute to 22 months in prison, going beyond the public prosecutor’s request for 18 months in prison and a 5-year suspended sentence. The accident took the lives of two of the driver’s fellow workers, both Portuguese, one age 62 and the other age 21. It also left three people injured, one of them, a 22-year-old Valais worker, who was left in critical condition.
The van crashed into a military vehicle that was stopped in the emergency lane of the A9 autoroute near Vernayaz in October 2010. The driver was over the legal alcohol limit. The judge, in passing the sentence, noted that he had already been condemned in 2002 for drunk driving and in 2004 he had killed a cyclist while driving although no alcohol was involved, according to Le Nouvelliste. The judge also noted that the man had falsely claimed at one point during the trial that one of his victims had been driving the van.
He gave up drinking only two months ago and had shown little remorse towards his victims, the judge added.
Several other court cases around the country are making headlines this week, including:
Zurich, Swiss Life, Dominique Morax, former head of finances for Swiss Life, saw his sentence reduced from 30 to 22 months for swindling the company’s directors in a 2002 deal; he was sentenced in 2010 but appealed.
Geneva, a court is hearing arguments that the owner of an Italian trucking firm should be charged with negligent homicide, in addition to his driver, for the death in March 2011 of a 20-year-old scooter rider. The driver, Serbian, was obliged by his boss to driver longer than the legally permitted number of hours, the victim’s family argues.
Vaud, the court is hearing arguments that the death of local councillor Catherine Ségalat in Vaux-sur-Morges was murder, while her stepson Laurent Ségalat’s lawyers say her fatal fall down a flight of stairs was an accident. Much depends on testimony from witnesses, some of whom say there was “tension” between the pair and others who say not. The politician died in January 2010.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four climbers died while returning from the summit of Mount Everest, over the weekend, Nepali officials report.
All four climbers, from Germany, China, South Korea and Canada, died along the Southeast Ridge route, at altitudes of over 8000 meters above sea level. This area is also known as the “death zone”, as it becomes nearly impossible to survive the treacherous conditions, including low oxygen levels for more than 48 hours.
Eberhard Schaaf, a 61-year-old German participating in the Eco Everest Expedition to remove accumulated garbage left on the mountain, died Saturday 19 May of cerebral edema, according to Ang Schering Sherpa, as reported on the Everest News website.
Shriya Shah, 32, a Nepali-born Canadian, who had dreamt all her life of climbing the summit, and a South Korean climber, Song Won-bin, 44, also died on Saturday. The first good weather days for climbing this spring were Friday 18 and Saturday 19, which lead to an estimated 150 climbers attempting the ascent each day. Nepali mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha told the Associated Press ”There was a traffic jam on the mountain on Saturday. Climbers were still heading to the summit as late as 2.30pm, which is quite dangerous”.
The body of Chinese climber Ha Wenyi, 55, who had been missing since the weekend, was found near to where the other climbers died.
Ang Tshering Sherpa explained “Most of these deaths occur due to high altitude sickness”.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll was unusually high for motorcyclsts in western Switzerland over the weekend: 1 person died in Geneva and 2 in Valais. A car accident Saturday at 17:40 took the lives of two men in Geneva.
The two men in the car crash were on the road from Peney to Bernex, in Aire-la-Ville, when their car crashed “violently” into a tree, say police. The 52-year-old passenger, a Portuguese man, died at the scene. Emergency workers gave the driver, a 75-year-old Geneva man, a long cardiac massage but were unable to save him.
Police are asking for anyone with information to contact them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Geneva, two fatal crashes in 12 hours
A 22-year-old Geneva man on a scooter died Sunday in Geneva, the canton’s sixth road death this year. The accident occurred on the viaduc de l’Ecu, say police, at 05:40 Sunday morning, when his scooter had a head-on crash with a car driven by a 62-year-old man from Togo. The circumstances of the accident are not yet clear and police are asking anyone with information to phone them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Valais, two motorcyclists killed in separate accidents
A 32-year-old Frenchman lost his life Sunday 13 May when the front of his motorcycle collided with a car that was stopped in a line of traffic, between Martigny and Fully. He was heading towards Fully at 15:40 when the accident occurred, about 200 metres short of the Branson bridge. Anyone with information is asked to phone police at the 117 emergency phone number.
Also in Valais, a 66-year-old man died Friday night on the A9 autoroute. He was pushing his motorcycle, which had broken down, through the Champsec tunnel in Sion, in the driving lane at 21:10, when a 32-year-old driver caught him with the front right edge of the car. The motorcyclist died at the scene of the accident.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Two youths are dead following a car crash at 21:50 Saturday 5 May on the edge of Granges-près-Marnand. Their overturned car was found just off the road in front of a business. The passenger was dead and the driver, age 20, was taken by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in critical condition.
He died at 07:00 Sunday morning. Police are investigating the cause of the accident and asking for witnesses to contact them at +41 21 644 4444.
The car was travelling on the road that links Villeneuve in Fribourg and Granges-près-Marnand.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Eleven people were killed outside the ministry of defense in Cairo Wednesday 2 May, and up to 160 were reportedly wounded. Plainclothes gunmen attacked a group of protesters who were camped outside the ministry. The group, which numbers in the hundreds, has been protesting army rule for a number of days.
Reuters reports that “The violence casts a deep shadow over the presidential election due on May 23 and 24, with a run-off in June, and highlights the fragility of Egypt’s transition to democracy, which has been punctuated by violence and political bickering.”
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Egypt.com, Reuters
Aljazeera news video
Geneva's buses and trams
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Fewer people died in train accidents in Switzerland in 2011, compared to 2010, but the number of deaths related to trams and buses rose. The country saw 13 deaths from trains last year, down by 5, most of them due to crossing train tracks and movements by freight trains.
The 18 other accidents, involving buses and trams, were mostly due to crashes by vehicles with other forms of transport, including bicycles and motorcycles, or with pedestrians.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two men died in the Swiss Alps in separate accidents Monday 9 April, one in canton Valais and the other in Ticino. A hiker in Ticino came across “human remains” Saturday.
Monday was the end of the long Easter holiday weekend in Switzerland.
A 36-year-old man from canton Fribourg died when a snow plaque broke loose as he and two other ski tourers were crossing a couloir as they climbed Mont Vélan, 3,710 metres, near Bourg-St-Pierre, in the Grand St Bernard area. The three had removed and were carrying their skis at about 3,400m altitude when the accident occurred, carrying the first skier who fell 500m. His companions, both also from Fribourg, immediately alerted authorities. The doctor who was part of the rescue team declared the man dead at the scene of the accident.
Ticino man slips over cliff edge
A 61-year-old Ticino man, out hiking around the Monti di Lasagno in Carasso near Bellinzona, fell into a ravine for reasons that are not yet clear. He was declared dead at the scene of the accident.
In other Easter weekend accidents, a woman was critically injured, with severe burns to her head and upper body in a fire at a campsite in Ricken, canton St Gallen. The cause of the fire is unknown, but other campers who saw her running, with the top of her body on fire, put out the flames.
And 75 people were pulled from a skilift at Diavolezza in canton Graubuenden Sunday, when the lift broke down. The rescue operation by three Swiss Alpine Club rescue workers and two Rega helicopters lasted two hours.
Police provide few details about the human remains
A hiker who was at about 800m altitude in the Arogno area, around Garavina, Saturday found human remains. Police are saying only that it is “a human body” and that forensic tests are underway.
Gotthard tunnel lines were long as weekend drew to close
Traffic returning Monday from the south formed long queues outside the Gotthard tunnel, as snow fell to 900 metres during the evening.
GENEVA, SWTIZERLAND – A former student at a small religious school that offers nursing courses in Oakland, California has shot and killed six students at the school, reports the Los Angeles Times. He was arrested at a nearby shopping centre.
He also wounded three others at Oikos University.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Russian media Ria Novostisay reports that 31 of the 39 or 43 (accounts vary) people aboard a UTair plane flying from Tyumen to Surgut in Siberia died when the plane crashed while trying to make an emergency landing at 01:50. The crash into a snowy field near the village of Gorkovka occurred shortly after takeoff, abut 3km from the airport. The eight passengers who were injured are reportedly in serious condition.
The plane was an Italian-French ATR-72 jet.
Eyewitness reports indicate that smoke was coming out of the engines and that there was a bang and a flash. Russian officials have reportedly ruled out terrorism and are saying that the accident was most likely a technical failure.
An eyewitness said he saw smoke coming from the plane’s twin engines as it plunged to the ground at around 01:50 GMT.
Another witness said there had been a “bang” and a flash before the craft crashed in a snowy field just outside the village of Gorkovka.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – One man died while sledding and another while paragliding in separate accidents in the Alps, say canton Valais police. Friday afternoon at 14:30 in Fiesch, in the Goms Valley, a man who was parapenting hit a streetlight as he was landing, for reasons that are not yet clear. The man, who died at the scene of the accident, has not been formally identified.
A 38-year-old Valais man died Saturday night while sledding in Bellwald, Valais. He was coming down from the restaurant Fleschen at 20:45 when he went off the path and crashed into “an obstacle”, according to police. His friends found him unconscious and tried to revive him but he died as an emergency team arrived on the scene.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The number of assisted suicides in Switzerland of people who are permanent residents in the country, appeared to rise during the first decade in which statistics were kept, 1998-2009. Three hundred people committed assisted suicide, which is legal, in 2009, giving a ratio of 4.8 out of 1,000 deaths. International comparisons are not possible on any scale because of wide differences in how countries deal with this, from no legislation to very strict laws.
But Switzerland sits in the middle of two other European countries that permit it and have been keeping records: Belgium shows 7.9 and The Netherlands 2.3 per 1,000 deaths, but Bern cautions that the statistics rely on the cause listed by a doctor on a death certificate.
The Swiss Federal Council in June 2011 decided not to legislate in this area, following a Zurich vote rejecting a law for that canton. The council agreed to do more to prevent suicides and to improve palliative care.
A national debate was prompted in part by the growing international attention, particularly from Britain, on assisted suicide tourism. Estimates vary from 100 to 200 foreigners a year coming to Switzerland for assisted suicide, mainly at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich.
The deaths in Switzerland are linked to a number of initial causes: cancer, 44 percent, neurodegenerative disease 14 percent, cardiovascular disease 9 percent, movement disorders 6 percent.
Ninety-percent of the people who choose assisted suicide are over age 55. Three percent of cases involve depression and dementia is mentioned in 0.3 percent.
Zurich, with 5.6 per 1,000 and Geneva, with 4.4 per 1,000, had the highest numbers and ratios.
Spring at the beach in Perroy Thursday: time out to admire the Alps
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – This is our last official report for the season, with flowers coming out and trees budding on the Swiss plains.
It doesn’t mean, of course, that you have to stop skiing, and if we spot anything of special interest, we’ll post it on GenevaLunch. See details below for the big x-treme event in Verbier this week and a thrillling video, plus a sobering tally of mountain accidents from the Swiss Alpine Club (CAS).
It’s been a great year, with wonderful snow everywhere, so we’re putting in a bid now for the same next season!
Meanwhile, start polishing those hiking boots, for we’ll soon be moving into that kind of weather, after a spring pause to let the slopes recover.
And take a little time to step back and admire the Alps from the shores of Lake Geneva before you head up to the mountains.
Weather forecast
The temperature spread in the Lake Geneva region area as well as the northern Alps (Vaud, Valais) is 2-19C for the next four days, highs of 12-13C in resorts at 1,700 metres. Time for sun cream if you’re going to the mountains. And what a weekend in the mountains, with sunshine everywhere, occasional cloud cover, no wind and spring in the air. National weather service MeteoSwiss
Avalanche, snow reports
Steep slopes in central Switzerland, around Andermatt, have an avalanche risk of 3, but otherwise the risk is moderate, 2/5 throughout Switzerland. The WSL avalanche institute map shows snow depth still good throughout the Alps.
News
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Iraq is being hit by a series of deadly bomb blasts, with the death toll Tuesday 20 March inching up towards 5. , Close to 200 people are reported to be injured. The attacks come a week before an Arab League meeting hosted by Iraq. CNN says the attacks took place in several cities: Baghdad, Kirkuk, Karbala, Hilla, Tikrit, Baiji, Ramadi and Falluja and that “some of them targeted police or government facilities.”
Nine years ago today US troops entered the country in a move that brought about the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Three people were trampled to death Monday at the memorial service held in central Cairo for Egypt’s Coptic pope, Shenouda III, Aljazeera reports.
The incident occurred as tens of thousands of devotees assembled around St Mark’s Cathedral to see the leader of the largest Christian community in the Middle East, sitting in state, according to tradition. Aljazeera said that streets were congested for kilometers as a result of the massive crowds.
Shenouda III, who died on Saturday at age 88, had lead the Coptic church’s for over 40 years. Ten percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million are Coptic Christians.
Following his initial support for the post-Mubarak military regime, the pope reacted to attacks on Coptic Christians, saying officials needed to address the community’s concerns.
After Monday’s deaths, Egypt’s Armed Forces announced the closure of the Cathedral, and the transfer of Shenouda to Wadi Al-Natroun, a desert monastery where he chose to be buried.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, BBC, Daily Mail
Accident just 24km from Sion, where injured children, families were being prepared to fly to Belgium
Deadly accident on the A9 near Fully Friday noon
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It has been a particularly deadly week on Swiss roads, and canton Valais, still reeling from the Sierre autoroute tunnel crash Tuesday that killed 28 people, had a second fatal accident on the A9 Friday, bringing to 31 the number of people who have died on Vaud and Valais roads in less than four days.
Traffic on the A9 from Martigny to Sion was stopped and emergency traffic signs were in place after a vehicle caught fire in the emergency lane of the autoroute Friday 16 March at 11:45, near the Fully-Saxon area. For reasons that are not yet clear, a van crashed into the back of a stationary truck, catching fire. Other drivers rushed to put out the fire and to free the trapped driver, unsuccessfully.
Police have not yet identified the victim.
Fully is just 24km from Sion, where police and hospital workers were busy loading children from Tuesday’s bus crash into air ambulances to fly back to Belgium and their initial route takes them directly over the autoroute where the crash occurred.
The road was closed between Martigny and Sion from 11:35 to 16:10 and from Sion to Martigny from 11:35 to 14:40.
Three children from the bus crash remain in critical condition at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and a motorcyclist hit by a car Thursday in Tolochenaz near Morges is also hospitalized at the Chuv, in critical condition.
A motorcyclist and his passenger died when they collided with a car in Genolier, Vaud Thursday.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The 21-year-old driver and his passenger of the same age on a motorcycle both died when their bike was hit by a car in Genolier shortly before 15:00 Thursday 15 March. The accident occurred at the Mimorey intersection in the village. The 24-year-old driver of the car was not injured but was taken to the Nyon hospital to be treated for shock.
Police are seeking witnesses to the accident and ask that anyone with information call +41 21 644 4444.
The driver of the car was driving in the direction of the lake and the motorcycle in the opposite direction when the two vehicles hit with a violent impact. The bike passenger died at the scene of the crime despite the quick arrival of a rescue team. The driver was taken by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, where he died during the afternoon.
It was the second serious motorcycle accident in Vaud in one day; a man remains in critical condition at the Chuv following an early morning crash in Tolochenaz, near Morges, on the lake road.
Both accidents resulted in road being closed for several hours to allow police to investigate.
Journalists were taken to the site of the crash Thursday evening, after families of the victims had visited and left flowers and messages, including a chalk heart, on the wall that the bus hit head-on
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – All 28 people who died in a bus crash Tuesday 13 March in Sierre have now been identified, say police. The formal identifications are necessary in order for police to release the remains to families.
The bodies will now be flown back to Belgium Friday on the two airplanes made available by the Belgian army, according to canton Valais police.
Police in Sierre earlier took about 250 journalists Monday evening to the closed Geronde Tunnel where the bus crashed Tuesday 13 March.
One of the distressing bits of news as part of their update was that only 19 of the 28 bodies had been identified.
Three hours later, police said that backup personnel and “exceptional means” made available for the identifications had allowed the process to be speeded up so that all the bodies could be identified in less than 48 hours.
Three of the problems the investigators ran into were the lack of a clear list for the occupants of the bus, since the group had three buses and one list of names, but also the fact that some of those who died in the violent crash were badly “mutilated”, making identification difficult, and too few witnesses given the number of deaths and serious injuries.
Dr Jean-Pierre Desfarzes, in charge of the emergency medical team, reflected the exhaustion and distress of the 200 rescue workers called to the scene, who worked throughout the night to save the injured and remove the dead
GENEVA / SION, SWITZERLAND – The death toll from Tuesday night’s horrific bus crash in Sierre, canton Valais remained at 28 Wednesday, according to Canton Valais police.
But in a rundown of the condition of the 24 passengers who are hospitalized with injuries there was good news and bad 20 hours after the accident.
The bus crashed head-on into a wall that is part of an emergency pullover area inside the tunnel, killing 28 and injuring 24, at 21:15 Tuesday 13 March.
The weather was fine, the tunnel well lit, no other vehicles were involved: in short, there is no easy explanation for the accident.
The bus was carrying children from southern Belgium who had been at a winter sports camp in the Val d’Anniviers. They were returning home and had only traveled 15 or so kilometres.
A press conference by Valais Police at 18:00 Wednesday provided a few new details:
- Of the 24 who are injured, 22 have been identified; police are still working to identify all of the dead definitively in order to tell their families, but the identification of two of the three who are in critical condition in Lausanne has not yet been possible and police have called in a number of medical specialists to try to speed up the process
- Numerous Dutch and Belgian families have come to Switzerland: some do not yet know if their children are dead or alive because there were three buses on the trip and although police quickly obtained a list of students, it was not immediately clear which children had taken which bus
- There were 52 people on the bus and the latest information indicates that in addition to the Belgians, 10 were Dutch, 1 German and 1 Polish person
- The state of the injured: the three patients at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne are in critical condition and Dr Jean-Pierre Deslarzes, head of the cantonal medical emergency group, choked up as he said that their lives remain in danger
- State of the others who are injured: one child flown to a hospital in Bern is in stable condition, six who were taken to hospital in Visp are medically well enough to leave the hospital; by Wednesday evening, of the 14 children hospitalized in Sion, one remained in intensive care but was being prepared to be moved to the pediatric care centre
- 200 rescue workers toiled throughout the night to free the injured and remove bodies; several passengers were incarcerated and cutting through the metal proved a long and difficult task, given the state of the bus, which suffered a violent impact
- translators and counselers are working with the canton to welcome and help house families and to help them cope with their grief and also the uncertainty.
The cause of the bus crash in Sierre, as well as its trajectory, are not yet clear
The cause of the accident remains unclear, but the district public prosecutor was rapidly contacted to open an investigation and ensure that police were able to safeguard any clues that might help clarify the cause.
Investigation head Olivier Elsig told reporters that the bus appeared to be traveling within the speed limit and that the children appeared to have used their seat belts, but the impact was so great that many of the seats were torn out.
He ruled out problems with the road surface or the tunnel itself, which is very well lit and relatively new (1999-2002 construction).
Police guard the area in the tunnel, near the Sierre west autoroute exit, where the accident occurred (left). The tunnel was closed Wednesday evening in the direction of Sion, for the investigation.
He cited the fact that the investigation is continuing, as a reason for not providing more details, but he also noted that the accident had occurred less than 24 hours earlier and a top priority was to remove the passengers, identify them and contact families.
The investigation could take some time, Elsig noted, as they look for witnesses who saw the bus before the accident and as they analyze wall and road tracings and interview survivors, once they are in a condition to talk.
Swiss, Belgian heads of state in Sion to try to understand crash, help families
World media flock to small city in mid-Alps to register the shock
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mid-March is the time when Sierre, known as Switzerland’s sunshine city, steps out of its winter clothes. Spring is in the air despite the still snowy peaks surrounding this Alpine town. Read more…
The bus came from the south, bottom of image, entered the roundabout (centre of image), then headed west into the tunnel, shown with dotted lines, bottom left
SIERRE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The cause of the Tuesday night 13 March bus crash that killed 28 in Sierre could remain a mystery for some time, with the two drivers dead and no immediate explanation for an accident in good weather, at the start of a trip, in a relatively new and well-lit tunnel.
The group was from two towns in Belgium, and was mostly children, who had been at a ski camp in the Val d’Anniviers.
Correction: The bus entered the 13-year-old Gamsen tunnel, which is 2km long, shortly after a roundabout at the end of the road coming down the mountain from the Val d’Anniviers in canton Valais.
Near the end of the tunnel, towards the A9 west exit for Sierre, heading in the direction of Sion, the bus veered to the right and crashed head-on into an emergency area wall.
The tunnel will be familiar to anyone who goes to resorts in the upper Valais area, including Zermatt, Saas Fee and Leukerbad, or from western Switzerland to Italy via the Simplon pass or tunnel, since it links the end of the autoroute and the cantonal highway that is the main artery to these areas.
Gamsen tunnel (photo, 2002, ©2012 Swiss Federal Highway Department)
It was inaugurated in 1999 and is part of a project to complete the autoroute to Italy via the Simplon, planned for 2019. The stretch to be completed is 31.8km, of which 15.8km will be tunnels, in part to protect the eco-system along the Rhone River and the Pfyn forest, the region’s first national forest.
There are several stretches of the road from Sierre to Brig that are under construction, but the area around the Gamsen tunnel, in the direction of Sion, does not have any roadworks at the moment.
Head-on crash into tunnel wall killed 28, injured 24 in Sierre, Switzerland (photo, Valais police)
SIERRE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Police in Valais are trying to piece together the cause of the Tuesday night 13 March accident they are describing as “of an extreme violence”.
Twenty-eight people, 22 of whom were children about age 12, lost their lives in the crash at 21:15 Tuesday night.
Valais police chief Christian Varone immediately informed Belgium’s ambassador to Switzerland, Jan Luykx, who went directly to the scene of the crash to help police contact the families as quickly as possible.
In a Wednesday morning bulletin police provide slightly more detail but the cause of the crash and the high number of deaths and injuries remains baffling for now: the bus veered to the right in the tunnel and into the wall at the end of an emergency pullover area.
The impact was so violent that the front of the bus trapped a number of passengers, who had to be cut out by firefighters. Rescuers have made reference to the high speed at which the bus must have been travelling for the crash to have such an impact, but it is not yet clear if the bus, one of three in a group carrying the Belgian students and adults, was traveling within the speed limit, which is 100kph inside the tunnel.
The accident, which sent 24 people, mainly children, to six hospitals, including the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and the cantonal hospital in Bern, called on a large number of emergency services: 30 police officers, 60 firefighters from Sierre and Sion, 15 doctors, 100 members of cleanup crews, 12 ambulances, 8 emergency helicopters (Air Glaciers, Air Zermatt, Rega), 3 psychologists who are providing counseling.
Ed. note: RTS, Swiss public radio/television in French, is providing regular updates that include photos of the very badly damaged front of the bus, taken in Sierre Wednesday morning.
Bus carried two classes of 12-year-olds; 24 injured
The bus carried 58 people, with the children from two towns in Flanders, Lommel and Heverlee. It was heading home at the end of the trip.Switzerland's Val d'Anniviers, where the school group had been skiing
Update 07:10 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A bus from Belgium, carrying two school classes of children who had just finished a week of ski holidays in the Val d’Anniviers, crashed in an autoroute tunnel in Sierre late Tuesday 13 March, killing 28 people and leaving 24 injured, Valais police say.
The accident occurred at 21.15 Tuesday night. The bus had just entered the autoroute and was in the tunnel that links the west and east A9 autoroute exits for Sierre when it swerved and crashed head-on into the tunnel wall at the end of an emergency pullover area.
The tunnel was built only 10 years ago, is wide and well-lit, relatively flat, with gradual curves, and the weather was dry and clear Tuesday evening so the tunnel and tires would have been dry.
The two bus drivers died in the accident. Police investigators are trying to determine what caused the accident.
Those who were injured are being treated in four area hospitals, with some flown to the Chuv in Lausanne and one to Bern.
The families, accompanied by psychologists, will be arriving in Switzerland during the day Wednesday.
Valais police have set up a hotline
From outside Switzerland +41 848 112 117
From Switzerland 0848 112 117
Update, Valais police report in Dutch
Sierre : een ernstig ongeluk met een Bus uit belgie
De 13.03.2012rond 21,15 In de Tunnel van de autobaan in Sierre is een ernstig ongeval gebeurd .
Een bus met belgische nummerplaat is tegen de wand van de tunnel opgeklapt.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond, Een grootscheepse hulp actie is opgezet.
De bus reed vanaf Sierre richting sion. Terwijl hij in de tunnel reed ,is de bus van de weg afgeraakt en is tegen de wand aangereden op het einde van een vluchtplaats.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond. De hulpgroepen zijn nog altijd bezig.De gewonden zijn vervoerd naar verscheidene ziekenhuizen,
De politie heeft een hulplijn opgezet die uitsluitend voor de families zijn gereserveerd.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Israeli forces “continued to target terrorists in the Gaza Strip Sunday morning after Palestinians continued to fire rockets at towns in southern Israel,” the Jerusalem Post reports 11 March, while the death toll is reported by CNN, citing Palestinian medical sources, to have risen to 17 in just two days. A 12-year-old boy was one of the latest victims, killed in the northern Gaza strip.
Israel has closed schools that are within 40km of the Gaza strip.
Both sides are blaming the other in a tit-for-tat escalation, with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton calls on them to stop. Aljazeera calls it the most damaging series of incidence since Occtober 2011.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sixteen people are officially reported dead from a train accident in southern Poland, where two high-speed trains had a head-on crash. Dozens of people are injured and Polish President Bronislow Komorowski has declared a national day of mourning, while the cause of the crash is investigated.
The accident occurred near the town of Szczekociny. An American is reported to have died and other foreigners on the train were reportedly from France, Ukraine and Spain. The trains are estimated to have been travelling at 100 kph. It is the worst train crash in 20 years in Poland.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A number of tornadoes have torn through several states in the centre and south of the US and the death toll now stands at 31, but there are fears it will rise as rescue workers check rubble. The deaths occurred in four states: Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Alabama, but areas in at least three other states have tornado watches in place.
It’s unusual to have such a high number of deadly storms. Twisters usually occur later in the year, as the weather warms up.
Links to other sites: CNN, NPR, Storm Prediction Ceneter, US Weather Service
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A dawn tornado that tore apart Harrisburg, Illinois Wednesday morning 29 February left 12 dead and massive damage to property in its wake as a massive storm cut across much of the Midwest in the US. A reprieve was welcome, reports CNN, but another storm appears to be building that is causing major concern. “A developing storm over the mid-Mississippi River Valley could pose a moderate risk to parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and northern Alabama, forecasters said.”
Links to other sites: Kansas City Star, Chicago Sun-Times
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Reports vary from 100 to more than 400 people dead in what is being called Latin America’s worst ever prison fire, in Comayagua, Honduras, 75 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa. The over-crowded prison that holds 800 caught fire late Teusday 14 February and some of the inmates managed to escape, but the bodies of the victims are so charred, say authorities, that they will have to use dental records to identify people.
Reutersreports that prisons in Honduras, the country with the world’s highest murder rate, are often the scene of riots and gang fights, but it’s unclear if the fire was started because of violence. The BBC quotes Comayagua firefighters’ spokesman Josue Garcia, who “said there were ‘hellish’ scenes at the prison and that desperate inmates had rioted in a bid to escape the flames. ‘We couldn’t get them out because we didn’t have the keys and couldn’t find the guards who had them,’ he said.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A couple aged 85 and 87 in Annemasse, France were found dead early Thursday by a member of the family, reports the Tribune de Geneve, apparently from accidents related to the cold. The couple were retired farmers and the wife, 85, may have slipped on the ice when she went out to feed her chickens. Her husband reportedly suffered from heart problems and died in the barn a few hours later, where he may have gone to look for his wife.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Egyptian state television is reporting that at least 73 people have died, and numbers are being revised upwards late Wednesday 1 February, after two football teams’ fans clashed in Port Said. More than 150 people are reported to be injured. Fans of Masry and al-Ahly teams, both in the top group, poured onto the football field after a match between the two. Masry won 3-1, an upset that triggered the violence. The BBC reports that some fans appear to have carried knives into the stadium, with policy keeping a lower than usual profile after riots in 2011 that was often directed at police under former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Links to other sites: BBC, Reuters
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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll has been steadily mounting with at least 140 people known to have died in Kano, Nigeria, after the city was shaken by a series of bomb explosions Friday night 20 January. The bombs were planted in security areas such as police stations. Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that operates mainly in the northern, Muslim-predominated part of the country has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group killed 37 people and injured scores more in a Christmas Day attack on a church outside the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria has been under pressure from protests over oil prices in recent weeks: it produces nearly 3 percent of the world’s oil, with production in the southern part of the country, but the system is riddled with corruption and the country is dependent on subsidized imported fuel. The government’s efforts to reform the system were behind a 1 January end to the subsidies, but angry protests suddenly broke out when the result was a near doubling of the price of fuel. But Reuters, in a 31 December article, noted that “Its strikes are becoming deadlier and more sophisticated, and suggest that it is trying to ignite sectarian strife in a country historically prone to conflicts between a largely Muslim north and Christian south.”
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, Reuters, WSJ Market Watch
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