One Village Mourns Dozens After Bus Accident in France
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Version 0 of 1. PETIT-PALAIS-ET-CORNEMPS, France — The news spread quickly as neighbor called neighbor or knocked next door. A bad accident. How bad? Nobody was certain at first. But then it became clear: The tiny village had suddenly lost many of its elderly people. On Saturday, the victims’ cars were still parked in the central square where the villagers had gathered the day before to cry and hear the terrible news. The bus that carried them to their deaths had left from the same spot by the town hall. Their friends, neighbors and loved ones — those who remain in this old stone village, lost in the vines of Bordeaux wine country — had gathered again, hanging their heads, mutely huddling against the chill. Mostly they were silent; there seemed little left to say. The only sound was the toll of the church bell in its ancient tower. A few miles away, accident investigators were still working to pull charred remains from the burned-out bus, which had been involved in one of France’s worst road accidents ever. At least 43 died, most of them older people out for a day’s excursion of ham-tasting and sightseeing in the soft and undulating countryside. In the mist-shrouded early morning on Friday, the bus, traveling Departmental Road 17, one of the narrow roads that snake through the vineyards and low forest, was hit by a truck that might have been straddling the center line, officials have said. Both vehicles were almost instantly engulfed in flames. About 28 of the victims were from this tidy low village of about 600, perhaps the hardest-hit by the accident in the whole region: retired vineyard workers, mechanics, masons, homemakers in the modest two-story houses of soft white stone. Everybody here knows someone who died, or is related to someone who died. The mayor lost three sisters-in-law. The circumstances of the accident were unbearable. “He couldn’t get his wife out,” said Philippe Gombeau, who had just spoken to one of the few survivors, Raymond Silvestrini, a fellow member of the local hunters’ association. He shook his head and marveled at how quickly the bus had caught fire. “He broke the window, but he couldn’t get her out. “Couldn’t get her out,” he repeated. His friend Michel Massias was equally shaken. “I don’t know how you reconstruct a life after that,” Mr. Massias said. “It’s a part of the village that’s gone.” Both men agreed that sleep was impossible Friday night. “They must have suffered,” Mr. Gombeau said. “In five minutes, the whole cabin was engulfed in flames.” Others tried to brush away thoughts of the victims’ bodies remaining inside the burned-out bus. “That’s what’s toughest, knowing they are still in there,” said Marie-Claude Clion. In the town’s austere meeting hall, 43 candles had been lit, one for each victim. Candles also glowed in the worn and venerable 800-year-old Romanesque church, Saint-Pierre de Petit-Palais-et-Cornemps, with its grinning animal carvings, where the evening before the entire village had gathered for a silent mass. People spilled out the doors into the little cemetery, but nothing had been said. On Saturday, villagers sat in silence on the church’s wooden benches. “There are really no words,” said Crystel Billonnet, who knew many of the victims as a home helper for the elderly. Her friend Beatrice Maintenat added, “It’s like a family here. We are just a little village.” The other elderly victims on the bus were from surrounding hamlets. The driver of the truck, who was transporting wood, and his 3-year-old son, who was riding in the cab, were also among the dead. By Saturday afternoon, 12 or 13 bodies had been removed from the wreckage, Reuters reported. Investigators were settling in for long days of identification, as many of the bodies had been badly burned. The exact number of dead remained unclear. The villagers hugged one another in front of the World War I monument, conscious that another set of victims now needed commemoration. For the reporters who were filling up the central square, the villagers counted the people they had known on the bus, ticking off the names. This friend was gone, and that one, and that one. “It’s heavy on the heart, when you have so many friends who are all gone so suddenly,” said Gerard Garem, who had hunting companions on the bus. “It is really tough. We really don’t even have words for it.” Under the gray skies, the villagers made plans to gather again — for a march, a mass, anything that would allow a sharing of grief. The wine business keeps this village going, unlike many other more moribund spots in rural France. Town hall is neatly turned out with freshly painted shutters and flowerboxes in the second-story windows. There is even a modest restaurant, a relative rarity for so small a place. All ages were represented here — young, middle-aged, old. But now the last category is sharply diminished. “As for the elderly, there are not too many of them left now,” said Jean-Pierre Thillard, who works in the wine business. Some contemplated the future — the days and weeks without those who are now gone — with dread. “We know that as time goes by, we won’t see them again,” said Mrs. Clion. “A lot of the houses have already closed up. And now there will be even more. Now we have to live, though. It is the future that makes us afraid.” |