A Portuguese man has been identified among one of the numerous victims in an horrific incident on a PostBus in Switzerland on Tuesday.
The man, aged 63, was the bus driver.
Everything indicates that this tragedy that claimed the lives of six people – and injured five others (two of which seriously) – was intentional.
Witnesses who managed to escape in time said they saw one of the passengers douse himself in ‘petrol’ (or inflammable liquid of some kind) before setting light to himself.
Reports today suggest police are not treating the incident as terrorism – more the case of a “marginalised, disturbed individual” having some kind of crisis. It is understood that the man who started the fire also died in the resulting conflagration that left the bus totally gutted.
This far, the name of the Portuguese victim has not been published, albeit condolences have been sent to his family by President Seguro, and by the Ministry of Internal Administration.
The CEO of PostBus – a network of distinctive yellow buses that serve more remote areas while also carrying letters and parcels – paid homage to the dead driver, describing him as a “valued colleague and part of the PostBus family.
“The tragic fire (…) has deeply shaken us”, CEO Stefan Regli said today. “On behalf of the Executive Board, the Board of Directors and all employees of Swiss Post, I express our deepest condolences to the family.”
Regli stressed that while employees are trained for fire emergencies “a situation like this is of a magnitude that cannot be trained for, and has never occurred before.”
The horrific incident, which took place in the town of Kerzers, Fribourg canton, is the second major multiple-casualty fire in Switzerland in less than three months.
In the early hours of January 1, a bar in the ski resort of Crans-Montana caught fire as people celebrated the New Year. A total of 41 people died, with another 115 injured.
Source: SOL/ Euronews/ 20minuten
