PARIS (Reuters) - Seven children were killed when a train collided with a school bus at a level crossing in eastern France on Monday, French authorities said.
Three people were seriously hurt and 24 suffered lessserious injuries, police said.
Fifty pupils from a school in the small town of Margencel,five parents and the driver were on board the bus, which wastaking the children on a school trip to a local historicalsite.
The children were believed to be 12 or 13 years old.
The accident occurred just before 2:00 p.m. (1 p.m. Britishtime) when a regional train struck the bus at a level crossingat Mesinges, near the town of Allinges in the mountainous HauteSavoie area near the border with Switzerland.
National train operator SNCF and rail network operator RFFsaid they would launch investigations to determine the causes.
RFF said early indications were that the level crossing,which was not considered high risk, was functioning normally.RFF said it was the most serious accident at a level crossingin about 30 years.
A woman in a car behind the bus told France Info radio shesaw the bus start to cross the track when the red warninglights were already flashing.
"The train came and it cut the bus in two," said theweeping woman, whose name was not given on the radio report.
The drivers of the bus and train both survived.
The Education Ministry said counsellors were on hand tohelp pupils from the school cope with the trauma.
Several ministers were on their way to the site andPresident Nicolas Sarkozy expressed shock and sympathy.
(Reporting by Laure Bretton, Christian Hartmann and ThierryLeveque; writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Andrew Dobbie)
