Three children and an adult have been killed after a car ploughed into a group of cyclists on a school camping expedition in the rural southern Netherlands, emergency services have confirmed.
Incident Details
Police have arrested a 19-year-old man and are investigating his role in the incident, but have not confirmed whether he was driving the vehicle. Two children and one adult were pronounced dead at the scene. Four other children sustained serious injuries and were taken to hospitals in the Netherlands and neighbouring Belgium for treatment. One of the injured children later died on Thursday evening at a hospital in Rotterdam, according to the Zeeland Security Region organisation.
Victims and Scene
The group consisted of 14 schoolchildren and two supervisors from a primary school in the nearby town of Axel. The crash occurred on a provincial road between farmers' fields near the small town of Vogelwaarde, approximately 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Amsterdam. Dutch media showed a photograph of a vehicle with a shattered windscreen and damaged bonnet in a field beside the road.
Context
Such incidents involving multiple cyclists are uncommon in the Netherlands, where cycling is deeply embedded in daily life and most roads have dedicated cycle lanes. No further details were immediately available.
