Four Portuguese nationals have died in France after a coach left the road. A further 28 Portuguese were injured, among them a child of two years of age, in an accident early on Sunday morning on the RN79, the notorious ‘road of death.’
The coach was taking Portuguese workers back to Switzerland after the holidays but left the road in Charolle, in eastern France at around 04:30 at a time when the road was especially dangerous due to sub-zero temperatures.
Firefighters, ambulance teams and medics were swiftly on site to rescue the victims from the wreckage, treating some of them on site, and transport the deal to the morgue.
The local Prosecutor’s Office is to interview the two drivers, both of whom survived the crash, as to the road conditions. The three women and one man who died had been thrown from the coach as it crashed and are said to have not been wearing seatbelts.
The owner of the bus company said his son was driving and that there was ice on the road.
The French Minister of the Interior, Bruno Le Roux expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and gave his support to rescue teams.
The RN79 route crosses France from east to west and remains one of France’s most dangerous journeys. It is the same road on which twelve Portuguese, two of them children, died in a head-on collision between a truck and a van in March 2016.