Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/QUEBEC: At least two children were killed and six others injured on Wednesday morning after a bus rammed into a daycare centre in Quebec, one of the 13 provinces of Canada.
The bus driver, identified as as Pierre Ny St-Amand, 51, faced nine charges, including first-degree murder and attempted murder, following the tragedy took place in the suburb of Laval, 20 kilometres northwest of Montreal.
Parents rushed to the incident scene to find the daycare centre closed by police after emergency services were alerted around 8.30 am.
Some abandoned their cars and run toward the daycare centre but were told to go to a nearby school that had been declared a meeting point.
Police said that the six injured children who were taken to the hospital did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Eyewitness Hamdi Benchaabane said he and others were asked to leave by firefighters as they struggled to save a second child, over fears pieces of the roof could collapse.
The bus driver was ‘in a different world’
Benchaabane said that the driver came out of the bus, removed all his clothing and started screaming.
“The first thing he did was take off his clothes after opening the bus door. He was yelling, no words were coming out of his mouth.”
Benchaabane said the driver was ‘in a different world’ adding that he and others at the scene hit him to bring him under control before police arrived.
“It was a nightmare, I cannot believe it,” he said.
Around 80 children under five were said to attend the daycare centre, which was located at the end of a driveway off a cul-de-sac.
There was a bus stop on the main road, but the bus driver would have had to veer off and go down the driveway to hit the building.
“St-Amand has been working for Laval’s public transport service for amlost 10 years and did not have a crimal record,” the mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, said.
“There is a conspiracy theory that it was an intentional act, but that remains to be confirmed by the police.”
Laval police spokesperson, Erika Landry, said that they did know the motive of the crime.
On the condition of anonymity, a senior Canadian government official told reporters that the crash was not a terrorist act and posed no threat to national security.
