At least eight people including several children have been sent urgently to hospital after a city bus crashed into a daycare north of Montreal Wednesday morning, emergency officials say.
Authorities did not immediately say how many of those injured in the crash in Laval, Que., were children.
The bus driver, an employee of the Société de transport de Laval, has been arrested, Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel told reporters.
“It’s premature to give you the number of injured … it’s terrible. It’s a terrible tragedy,” Bonnardel said in Quebec City.
Montreal’s Sainte-Justine children’s hospital has received some of the injured. The hospital said in a statement it is “welcoming the young victims … with serious injuries requiring urgent care. The hospital centre teams are doing everything they can to treat patients, but also to support families in this tragic situation.”
Earlier Wednesday, Quebec Premier François Legault said his thoughts are with the children and their families, as well as with the employees of the daycare in Laval. “We are going to give the parents all the help we can, and as a father, I am shaken.”
Aerial news footage from the scene shows a city bus that has smashed through the front of the Garderie Éducative Ste-Rose. Laval police said they received a 911 call at about 8:30 a.m., but they were unable to give details about what caused the bus to hit the daycare.
The daycare is located at the end of a driveway off a cul-de-sac. There is a bus stop on the cul-de-sac, but the driver would have had to veer off the road and head down the long driveway to hit the building.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to the crash. “Our thoughts are with families in Laval who are living incredibly difficult moments … we hope that everyone will be OK,” he said. “We are following the situation closely.”
Police set up a large perimeter around the daycare as distraught parents arrived to check on the state of their children.
