Four Children Die as Train Hits School Bus in Southwestern France

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Four children have died after a train and a school bus collided outside the town of Perpignan in southwestern France, according to the interior ministry.

The collision occurred at 4pm local time on Thursday afternoon on a railway crossing at the small town of Millas some 9 miles west of Perpignan, close to the border with Spain.

Photos from the scene tweeted by a local television station showed the train derailed and the bus shorn in half.

The dead pupils were reportedly between eight and 14 years old.

Another 20 people were injured in the crash, 11 of them seriously, according to French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who travelled immediately to the scene. Most of the injured were schoolchildren aboard the bus, aged 13-17.

Philippe Vignes, state prefect for the Pyrénées-Orientales region, called it an accident of "national proportions" that required "national security reinforcements".

Some 70 emergency workers with 10 vehicles were at the site, where a field hospital has been set up. Four helicopters are at hand.

Families of passengers rushed to the scene but were not allowed to approach the bus, according to AFP. Police asked them to gather at the local school. Some were received at the town hall.

It was not immediately clear how the accident occurred.

SNCF, the national rail operator, said the level crossing where the collision took place "was not on the list of sensitive crossings". It was, a spokesman told Le Figaro, "well-equipped, in good working order and classic".

The train was travelling at 80 kilometres per hour, a "normal speed at this place," it said.

According to witnesses cited by Le Figaro, the crossing barriers were down when the crash occurred. 

But the big sister of a pupil in a...

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