At least 42 people died when a bus carrying elderly day-trippers collided head-on with a truck and caught fire near Bordeaux early on Friday, in France’s worst road crash in more than 30 years.
Another eight people were injured in the collision on a country road near Puisseguin in the Gironde region about 60km (35 miles) east of Bordeaux, the local prefect’s office said in a statement.
The bus was carrying about 50 pensioners south to the Bearn region from their homes in the village of Petit Palais and surrounding hamlets, all just a few kilometers away from the crash site, said officials.
A grainy photo on BFMTV showed smoke rising from the burnt out shell of the bus on a narrow, forested bend.
A spokesman for the interior ministry said that, as far as he could tell, all the passengers were French and from the region.
President Francois Hollande, speaking on a visit to Athens, said he had been “plunged into sadness by the tragedy” and Prime Minister Manuel Valls and other ministers were heading to the crash site.
It was the most deadly road accident in France since 53 people, mostly children, died in a bus crash in Burgundy in July 1982, according to the independent road safety organization Association Prevention Routiere.
