Thousands of mourners attend memorial service for victims of Swiss school bus crash. March 2012

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Smashed: The wreckage of the bus which crashed into an underpass in Sierre, in the Swiss canton of Valais.

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Thousands of mourners attend memorial service for victims of Swiss school bus crash

By Graham Smith for MailOnline

PUBLISHED: 09:52 EST, 21 March 2012 | UPDATED: 13:23 EST, 21 March 2012

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Soldiers bore 15 coffins into a 5,000-capacity hall in Lommel, Belgium.

One brown coffin carried the remains of a teacher, alongside 14 white caskets each containing a 12-year-old.

Memorial service for 13 victims from school in Heverlee to be held tomorrow.

Grief: Soldiers bore 15 coffins into a 5,000-capacity Soeverein Arena in Lommel, Belgium.

Thousands of mourners including Belgium's King Albert today remembered the 28 victims of last week's bus crash in a Swiss tunnel during a memorial service.

Under a sparkling sky, soldiers took part in a solemn procession that carried 15 coffins into a 5,000-capacity hall in Lommel in north-east Belgium.

The brown casket contained the remains of a teacher, the 14 white ones held the bodies of children who were on the cusp of their teenage years.

The students and the teacher were from one of two schools in northern Belgium that shared a bus for a traditional 'snow class' vacation in Switzerland.

They were returning from that holiday on March 13 when tragedy struck. Their bus, carrying 52 people, slammed into a tunnel wall. In addition to the dead, 24 children were injured.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

During the service, Lommel Mayor Peter Vanvelthoven asked: "Is there something worse than parents who lose what they love most?"

In the three-hour ceremony in the blackened arena, a bittersweet attempt by pupils to briefly lift spirits with the up-tempo evergreen song about Cheerful Friends failed to break a leaden atmosphere.

Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of the dead gave speeches reminiscing about their lost loved ones, including a daughter's favourite meal and a son's newly decorated bedroom.

"The snow classes were a true feast. Happy, smiling kids. Excellent weather, great snow," ski monitor supervisor Marina Claes said of the days preceding the tragedy.

She spoke of snow barbecues, surprise parties, and on the last day "everyone got their much desired ski diploma".

A separate service will be held tomorrow for the victims from the other school, in the town of Heverlee.

Six of the victims were Dutch nationals, and Belgium's King Albert II was joined at the service by Dutch Crown Prince Willem Alexander, Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte.

The 15 coffins were lined up at the front of the hall for the hour-long ritual. The dignitaries walked over to the grieving families to try to give them some measure of comfort.

The 'snow class' is a rite of passage from childhood to teenage years for countless Belgian children, and the contrast between the happiness of the trip and the horror of the crash has moved virtually everyone in the nation of 11 million.

At the service, families pinned red roses into the center of a giant heart of yellow roses as the famed Scala choir sang.

As Scala sang a soulful rendition of U2's With Or Without You, the coffins were carried outside into the bright sunlight and handed back to the care of families for funeral arrangements.

Three girls who were on the trip remain in Switzerland. They were badly injured, but have regained consciousness and are out of immediate danger.

The crash near the Alpine town of Sierre was one of the worst road disasters in Swiss history.

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From Wikipedia

The Sierre bus crash occurred on 13 March 2012 near Sierre, Switzerland, when a coach carrying school teachers and pupils crashed into a wall in the Sierre Tunnel. Of the 52 people on board, 28 were killed in the crash, including both drivers, all four teachers, and 22 of the 46 children. The other 24 pupils, all aged between 10 and 12, were injured, including three who were hospitalized with serious brain and chest injuries.

The coach was one of three operated by the Aarschot-based Top Tours company and was transporting mostly Belgian school teachers and students from a skiing holiday in Val d'Anniviers back to their two schools in Belgium. It crashed at around 9.15 pm CET while travelling on the A9 motorway near Sierre, in the southern canton of Valais.

It was Switzerland's second-worst road accident in history and the country's worst in a motorway tunnel. The investigation into the crash initially closed inconclusively in May 2013, having ruled out a number of factors that had been the subject of media speculation but failing to identify a cause. A further public investigation, closing at the end of June 2014, attributed the crash to a non-criminal error on the part of the coach driver. Media speculation has continued.

Circumstances ~

The passengers, four teachers and 46 pupils from Saint-Lambertus school in Heverlee, Flemish Brabant, and 't Stekske primary school in Lommel, Limburg, were returning home with two other schools originating from Beersel and Haasrode, Flemish Brabant, having spent the previous few days at a skiing resort in Val d'Anniviers in the Swiss Alps.

The crash occurred shortly after 9 pm local time (CET) on 13 March 2012, when the coach, while in the Sierre Tunnel, lost control, veered, slammed into a curb and then struck a concrete wall head-on, at the end of an emergency turnout area. The front portion of the vehicle was seriously damaged, initially trapping some survivors inside for some time; the side and rear windows of the coach had to be smashed by emergency workers in order to gain access to the trapped passengers.

Rescuers described the scene as "apocalyptic" and some became distressed as they fought to remove dead and injured children from the wreckage. Eight air ambulances and a dozen road ambulances were used to send injured victims directly to several hospitals for treatment. The most seriously injured children were sent directly to hospitals in Bern and Lausanne for treatment.

The coach was one of three hired by the group; the other two reached Belgium safely. Among the passengers aboard the crashed bus were 39 Belgians, ten Dutch children, one German child, one British child, and one Polish child.

Passengers ~

Most of the passengers aboard the coach were Belgian nationals. Six of the 10 Dutch passengers were killed, as well as one schoolboy with dual Belgian-British nationality.

The exact cause of the crash was never completely determined. Investigators eventually concluded the driver of the bus made an error in handling the bus, but could not elaborate as to the specifics of the error or why the driver made it. Tests revealed the driver was not intoxicated with alcohol, did not suffer a heart attack or any other sudden illness, and prosecutors stated he was not exceeding the 100 km/h (62 mph) speed limit at the time of the crash. Experts have narrowed the cause of the crash to either driver fatigue or some sort of undetected medical issue. Police said that the coach, operated by Aarschot-based Top Tours, a company with an "excellent reputation", was a modern and well-maintained vehicle, and that the children had all been wearing the fitted seatbelts at the time of impact. The inconclusive outcome of the investigations into the accident was met with anger from parents of the victims.

Both drivers and all four teachers upon the coach died in the accident. However, 24 of the 46 children aboard the vehicle survived and some were able to provide witness statements.

The design of the turnout area, which ended abruptly in a concrete wall, contributed to the severity of the crash.

Reactions ~

Belgium declared a day of national mourning on 16 March 2012 in memory of the 28 people who died in the crash, including 21 Belgian nationals, with flags being flown at half-mast and a minute's silence being observed. Peter Vanvelthoven, the mayor of Lommel, whose school lost 15 of its 22 pupils and both of the teachers aboard the coach, announced a memorial service the next week in the town, with attendees including the Belgian royal family and Prince Willem-Alexander and Maxima of the Netherlands.

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Grief: Soldiers bore 15 coffins into a 5,000-capacity Soeverein Arena in Lommel, Belgium.

Tragic: One brown coffin carried the remains of a teacher, alongside 14 white caskets each containing a 12-year-old.

Respect: The 15 coffins were lined up at the front of the hall for the hour-long ritual. The dignitaries walked over to the grieving families to try to give them some measure of comfort.

Heartbreak: Thousands of mourners watched the ceremony on a giant screen suspended from the roof.

Quiet reflection: Mourners gather outside the Soeverein Arena during the service.

Heartfelt: Mourners leave messages on the remembrance wall before the service.

Repatriation: A military brass band pays tribute as the coffins of children and teachers are displayed in a hangar at Melsbroek, Belgium.

Goodbyes: The husband and children of teacher Veerle Vanheukelom watch as her coffin is carried into a hearse after the memorial service.

Sombre: Soldiers bore the coffins into the arena with one carrying a picture of each of the victims.

Remembrance: Thousands of mourners including Belgium's King Albert attended a memorial service in Lommel today for victims of last week's bus crash in a Swiss tunnel that killed 22 children and six adults.

Grief-stricken: A woman clutches a teddy bear at the remembrance service for the 15 victims from the north-eastern town of Lommel.

Tribute: The 15 victims from Lommel were from one of two schools in northern Belgium that shared a bus for a traditional 'snow class' holiday in Switzerland.

Devastated: Children comfort each other as they attend the service outside the town's Soeverein Arena.

In mourning: A young girl wipes away her tears (left), while another signs the remembrance wall (right).

The schoolchildren and their teachers were returning from a ski holiday on March 13 when their bus slammed into a tunnel wall in Switzerland.

Mourners leave flowers and other remembrances at the tunnel where the crash happened.

A memorial inaugurated three years after the drama of Sierre.

Sierre Tunnel.

The wall where the bus crash took place in March 2012 in the tunnel of Sierre in Switzerland. A new safety barrier has been reinstalled after the accident.