Train crashes into evacuated school bus in Germany
A train ploughed into a school bus in northern Germany, amateur video showed on Wednesday (September 16).
Fortunately, no one was killed, as the bus had been evacuated just moments before the train hit it.
Police said in a statement that the bendy bus had become stuck when it had to turn into a narrow street following a level crossing.
That left the back end of the vehicle on the tracks.
Unable to restart the bus, the 23-year-old female driver evacuated it, moving the group of around 60 students onto the road running parallel to the railway in Hedendorf, some 30km west of Hamburg, reported Reuters.
The students then watched as the train hurtled along the tracks, blasting its horn, and crashed into the bus.
Student Marvin Schulz, who recorded the whole event on his camera phone, told Mirror Online that the students and the bus driver panicked when they realise that a train was hurtling in their direction.
Lucky for them, the bus driver kept her cool and evacuated the students from the bus.
"Of course she was panicking - she is only 23 and what are you supposed to do in that situation? She did the right thing: opened all the doors so everybody could get out and evacuated all the students," he said.
"We knew that that was exactly where we had been sitting before and what might have happened. That's quite intense," he added.
Russian media outlet RT, quoting German media Bild, reported that the bus had to use the train crossing because the usual route had been closed due to construction work.
Although the train driver activated the emergency brake, it could not stop in time.
Police said that one person on the train was sightly injured and that they estimated damage to cost around 300,000 euros (S$473,000).
As for the children, a replacement bus came to take them to school.
Sources: Reuters, Mirror, YouTube, RT
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