Police Cantonale Valais / AFP - Getty Images
Rescuers are seen next to the wreckage of a bus after it crashed in a tunnel in Sierre, Switzerland.
By msnbc.com news services
Updated at 3:18 a.m. ET: SIERRE, Switzerland -- A bus carrying Belgian students returning from a ski holiday crashed into a wall in a Swiss tunnel, killing 28 people, police said Wednesday.
At least 22 of those killed were children, and another 24 students were hospitalized with injuries, Valais cantonal (state) police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet told The Associated Press.
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The bus carrying 52 people crashed around 9 p.m. local time in a tunnel at Sierre, Switzerland, near popular ski areas in the Swiss Alps.
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Some 200 rescuers worked through the night at the crash scene, while 12 ambulances and eight helicopters ferried the injured to hospital.
Belgian media reported that the children were from two towns, Lommel, east of Antwerp, and Heverlee, near Leuven. A government spokesman said a crisis center has been set up.
'It's incomprehensible'
Didier Reynders, the Belgian foreign minister, said authorities were still busy identifying all the victims.
Yorick Jansens / AFP - Getty Images
There were emotional scenes at the Stekske primary school in Lommel, Belgium, on Wednesday morning following news of the bus crash.
"It is incomprehensible," he said of the accident.
Reynders said the bus was one of three travelling together and the other two had returned to Belgium.
"Only one was in (an) accident without any contact with another vehicle," he said. "It hit a wall in a tunnel."
The Belgian ministry of defense said it would make available two aircraft so that the families of the victims could be flown to the crash site later on Wednesday.
The canton of Valais borders Italy.
Switzerland's mountain regions have a history of deadly crashes.
In 2005, a bus crashed in a Valais ravine, killing 12 and injuring 15. In 2001, a truck crashed in the Gotthard tunnel under the Alps, causing a blaze which killed 11 people.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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