Scene of dread in Canada. A bus rammed into a daycare center on Wednesday morning near the Canadian city of Montreal, killing two children and injuring six others.
What happened ?
The event occurred around 8:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. GMT) in the city of Laval, on the outskirts of Montreal. A bus from the Société de transport de Laval (STL), according to the Quebec newspaper La Presse, crashed into the facade of this daycare center located in a parking lot. Several injured children found themselves trapped under the bus, before being released, said the relief. The driver was subdued with the help of relatives.
In the images, you can see the bus embedded in part of the building. Part of the roof of the building collapsed on the front of the bus.
What is the balance sheet?
Initially, Marianne Lessard, spokesperson for Quebec relief, reported eight seriously injured children. Two of them died from their injuries, one on the spot and the other after being taken care of by paramedics. The other six were declared out of danger. No adults were injured.
The Sainte-Justine hospital, which received the victims of the accident, announced a press briefing at the start of the afternoon.
The trail of a deliberate act
According to the Minister of Public Security of Quebec, François Bonnardel, the driver of the bus, a 51-year-old man, was placed under arrest “for homicide and dangerous driving”.
Police believe it may have been an intentional act. “We think it’s deliberate, but we don’t know the motive,” the Laval police chief said. The driver, who was being questioned by police on Wednesday afternoon, had no criminal record.
“I do this trip every day and I can tell you that I’m sure it’s not an accident. The daycare center is too far from the roundabout for it to be an accident,” a city bus driver said earlier on condition of anonymity.
According to several witnesses, the man who was “half undressed” actually “deliberately” ran into the daycare. “The investigation continues to understand this tragic series of events,” wrote the mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer on Twitter.
“He opened the door. He took off all his clothes. He was totally naked. We dived on him to control him,” Hamdi Ben Chaabane, the neighbor who helped immobilize the driver, told Radio Canada. “He was in another world, he kept screaming. He said no words,” he added.
“A terrible tragedy”
“I am devastated. We all are,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the halls of parliament in Ottawa. “I can’t imagine what families are going through,” he added.
On Twitter, the Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, for his part deplored “a terrible tragedy”. “There is nothing worse than being afraid for your child,” he added. “As a father, I am shaken and then I find it hard and I can understand the anguish that parents are currently experiencing,” he also said during a press briefing.
Toronto’s iconic CN Tower will go dark for five minutes at the start of every hour in the evening in memory of the victims of this attack.
In 2018, in this city southwest of Montreal, Alek Minassian drove into a crowd in the city center, killing 11 and injuring 16, the deadliest car-ramming attack in the country’s history. .