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Post by Jaga on Jul 22, 2007 8:30:07 GMT -7
NOTRE-DAME-DE-MESAGE, France (Reuters) - Twenty-six Polish pilgrims died on Sunday when their coach careered down a hillside and burst into flames at the foot of a small village near the southeastern French city of Grenoble. he coach smashed through a roadside barrier after apparently suffering braking problems as it descended the steep RN85 trunk road at a notorious accident blackspot, rescue officials said. Most victims perished in the fire, said emergency officials, adding they would need help from forensic experts in Paris to identify the victims by their DNA. Gendarme (police) Lieutenant-Colonel Thierry Rousseau told Reuters that of the 24 injured, 12 were in a critical condition and had been evacuated to hospital "in an absolute emergency." "Witnesses spoke of a problem with the braking system, an unusual black smoke," he said. Local officials said the coach's speed may also have been a factor in the accident. Television pictures showed several bodies laid out underneath white sheets on the grassy banks of the Romanche river, the coach still smouldering in the background as fire crews doused it with foam. news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070722/wl_nm/france_crash_dcsee some pictures in above link |
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Post by Jaga on Jul 22, 2007 8:31:11 GMT -7
the accident happened at the Laffrey gradient, a notorious accident blackspot where a Belgian coach crashed in July 1973, killing 43 people.
Polish television said the Polish pilgrims were from parishes in the Szczecin area of northwestern Poland, who were due to return home on Tuesday. The Polish Foreign Ministry has set up telephone hotlines for relatives.
The Poles had been attending a pilgrimage at the nearby Notre-Dame de la Salette sanctuary along with nationals from Belarus, Ukraine, France, Russia and Britain.
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Post by Jaga on Jul 23, 2007 8:31:20 GMT -7
Polish bus did not have the permission to drive there. There are some other roads it could take.
The last weekend in Poland was especially tragic. Many people were enjured, there was also another bus accident of Russians in Poland
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Post by pieter on Jul 23, 2007 9:43:10 GMT -7
Jaga, I saw it on the Dutch news yesterday, saw the crying and mourning relatives in Chestochova in Poland, and the Dutch news also mentioned the accident with the Belgian bus in 1973 in which 43 people died. It is a terrible tragedy. For the injured, the people that lost their father, mother, children, cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews. Or just people who lost friends or dear colleages! Every human being will feel empathy for the victims! Let's pray for the wounded, let's pray for the dead! A christian version of Kaddish ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish ) Pieter |
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Post by pieter on Jul 23, 2007 9:47:06 GMT -7
I could not help myself but thought about what those last moments of those poor people must have been!
Jaga,
I hope that those who died died quickly without suffering, the torture of suffocating smoke, heat and
the pain of the wounds and broken bones! I hope for the wounded that they will recover and that they
will get proper theraphy and manage to restart a normal live again!
Pieter
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Post by bescheid on Jul 23, 2007 11:09:21 GMT -7
Jaga
What a terrible horrific accident!! The photographs were very revealing of the high impact forces involved.
Your analysis was very correct. The bus was a 2000 Scania and was safety checked in Germany 3 weeks previous. These are very excellent and safe vehicles, heavy but very road worthy.
What a terrible cost though of ignoring 11 warning panels of a 8 Km decent of 12% grade forbidden to most heavy vehicles.
The only good thing of this, at least there are survivors.
Charles
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george
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 568
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Post by george on Jul 23, 2007 16:02:53 GMT -7
Heck of a thing. Tragic. Here a bunch of devout Catholics are visiting shrines in a nearby country and die in a fiery crash for their efforts. Makes you wonder sometime. I guess thats why i'm basically a diest.
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Post by kaima on Jul 23, 2007 18:22:48 GMT -7
Well, if you have to go, then there is not much of a better way or time. The hard part is for teh people left behind. Death had to be relatively quick, it sure beats years of suffering from cancer & cussing out people who fight modern research. They were also on a pilgrimage, so more likely to be in a state of grace than usual, so there should be joy at their probable salvation.
All that said, there is no getting around the human emotion and loss at the untimely death of so many people.
Kai
PS George, Their suffering is a small drop in the bucket of suffering that is allowed on this earth every day. Makes you wonder sometimes. Yes.
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Post by Jaga on Jul 23, 2007 21:28:28 GMT -7
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scatts
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Post by scatts on Jul 23, 2007 23:15:53 GMT -7
This is, obviously, a terrible thing but I have to say that I find the government initiated "3 days of mourning" and everything else surrounding this accident, quite absurd.
Would we be having 3 days of mourning if this were a bus full of drug addicts on their way to a rehabilitation clinic? I think not. But, this is pilgrims, so there has to be an outcry. This government should keep out of religion, or get out of politics.
To George's point. The news did a run-down of all significant Polish deaths in bus accidents. It went something like - pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims...........
Does God have an issue with pilgrims?
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Post by pieter on Jul 23, 2007 23:48:22 GMT -7
Yes, Dafur (Sudan), Tsad, Congo, Ruanda, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Ruanda, Burundi, Kasmir,
Chechenia, Birma, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestinian area's, Israel (Suïcide bombings), Russian federation (the terrible state of minorities, who are under attack of extremists, Russian maffia and gangsterism, and the killings and suïcides within the Russian army), Western-Europe (nurmerous cases of wife and child killings by crazy husbants, and the honour killings within Islamic minority communities - recent figures estemated that about 20% of the homocides in the Netherlands were honour killings-
which means defending the honour of the family when a girl or boy, women or man decides to choose their own partner instaid of the choice the family made for them).
And next to this you have all those collective and individual human tragedies all over the world on all continents and in all countries. Diseases (cancer, HIV and etc.), mental ilness of millions of people (who suffer whole their lives from that), drugs addiction, alcoholism,
the silent greef of unemployment, being poor, or having lack of food or drinking water!
Pieter
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zooba
Full Pole
Posts: 369
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Post by zooba on Jul 24, 2007 0:01:30 GMT -7
This is, obviously, a terrible thing but I have to say that I find the government initiated "3 days of mourning" and everything else surrounding this accident, quite absurd. Does God have an issue with pilgrims? Ad.1 Yes, it's quite absurd, people are growing tired of all the mourning, obligatory, official and quite often not sincere. When the Pope died it was spontaneous and natural, now a bit stretched. Ad.2 Suspicious coincidence, isn't it? I guess, this is because pilgrimages are the most common bus trips taken by the Polish, other tourists go by planes or travel in their own cars. Also, the pilgrimages are organized at lowest possible costs - perhaps at the costs of experienced staff, good buses, motorway fees etc. |
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Post by troubledgoodangel on Jul 24, 2007 5:41:18 GMT -7
An immense tragedy that needed not happen. It only reinforces my point that Poland is not yet ready for her new boots! Many drivers in Poland are simply reckless! Not long ago I had lost several thousand z³otych in repairs when a pilgrimage autocar driver from Kielce hit my vehicle in front of the Shrine of the Black Madonna at Czêstochowa. He knew had no room to pass, but was passing! One of the drivers from the latest accident did survive and is being questioned. It is clear that the speed on an unknown road contributed to the accident. At possible 100 kilometers per hour, on a 90 degree curve and on a possibly wet asphalt, a heavy vehicle is out of control regardless how many advanced break systems it has! I remember the sinking feeling when a similar thing happened to me in Rome, on Via Ardeatina: my heart stopped and my mind blanked out! I arrived at an unexpected 90 degree curve over 100 kilometers per hour and accellerating, trying to pass another vehicles in complete darkness. The rest was in the hands of God. I only had a fraction of a second to think. If I touched the breaks too much, I would have flipped over. So I let the vehicle skid into the opposing lane, barely enough to rip the entire side of the first passing vehicle. By miracle, we all survived (the accident was exactly in front of the Miraculous Madonna del Divino Amore Shrine). There was no time to hit the emergency break systems. This is what I think has happened near Grenoble. The driver forgot he was on a slope, and probably did not see the curve warning sign. He was probably going extremely fast when he realized the danger. I really cannot understand why the other driver (and several priests on the bus), did not notice excessive speed! Polish people need to grow up in a hurry, to adjust to the western world, or these un-called for accidents (like the Kielce Hala Targowa roof collapse) will continue to happen. Let me close with a powerful quote which I found today on the front page of the Kraków's Dziennik Polski regarding this tragedy. At a homily at the Warsaw Military Cathedral, Fr. S³awomir ¯arski, the Chaplain of the Polish Army, said: "the pilgrims went to seek God, and they found Him." Indeed, God can be found in many ways ... and this is certainly one of them, but the statement is nonetheless thought provoking. I would venture to say that this way was the last thing the pilgrims probably had in mind to find God. God makes Himself find in many ways. Sometimes, He sort of hides Himself and makes a person wait. Other times, He actually comes to meet people on their way, with His life-giving Grace. But there are indeed times that He meets them in death! The homily, delivered by a military Chaplain, was perhaps more suited for soldiers going to battle, not knowing if they will return. But it underscores how fragile is human life, and that one way to find God is precisely in death where the true life is found!
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Post by Jaga on Jul 24, 2007 9:28:09 GMT -7
My brother also wrote from Poland that this accident serves as a self-promotion for a current president. The accident was terrible, but it could be avoided. I remember travelling in terribly old bus in Scandinavia. The driver was just careful and therefore we survived!
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george
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Post by george on Jul 24, 2007 17:05:21 GMT -7
I'm sure many of these people suffered obscene deaths. The bus was burned beyond recognition. Many i'm sure were burned to death. The worst way to die. Pieter is correct. This kind of horrible tradegy happens everyday in various parts of the world. Trying to soften the blow by saying that they died in a state of grace because they just came back from visiting a shrine doesn;t give me that more fuzzy feeling.
My older sister is selling her house for $850,000. My mother is saying her prayers that she sells her house. My middle sister buried a statue of St Joeseph in her back yard. ( This is some kind of crack potted old catholic tradition i guess when your trying to sell your property). Sounds like paganisim to me. I guess my point is that it all doesn't make a darn bit of sense. I'm a diest. A diest is one who believes that God created life and left it alone. In other words, he knows the future the minute AFTER it happens. He doesn't interfere. He or she lets life go on without his or her tampering. I have good company. Many of America's founding fathere were diests. Including Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne, Ben Franklin and a couple couple of others who i can't think of their names right now. Anyway, it just seems absurd to me that a God would answer someones prayer to get a good score on a exam and on the other hand would let pilgrims die in a fiery crash.
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