• 'Heads with bullet holes': Ex-pilot who found multiple murder victims in Alps tells of horror

    Norbert Falco / Le Dauphine via EPA

    Flowers lay at the site where four people died in a shooting at a parking in Chevaline, near Annecy Lake, France, on Sept. 8.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    LONDON -- A former British air force pilot who discovered the bodies of four people on a road in the French Alps has told how he slowly realized what he initially thought was an accident was actually a horrific multiple murder and how he could be in serious danger.

    Brett Martin was cycling on the road near Lake Annecy on Sept. 5 when he discovered the bodies of Saad al-Hilli, 50, an Iraqi-born engineer, his wife Iqbal, a 47-year-old dentist, and and her mother in a BMW car, along with French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45. Mollier had cycled passed Martin, from Sussex, England, earlier on the road.

    In an interview with BBC News, Martin said he feared the shooter might still be nearby, but took actions that were later said by French authorities to have saved the life of the al-Hillis' daughter Zainab, 7, who was shot and beaten in the attack.


    Martin told the BBC the first thing he saw as he approached the scene was a bicycle lying on its side and Zainab, who he initially thought was playing. He then realized she had serious head injuries and was covered in blood.

    "She was prone on the road, moaning, semi-conscious and she was lying in a position that was in front of this car with its wheels spinning," Martin told the broadcaster. "She was very severely injured because she was in and out of consciousness."

    'A lot of blood'
    He moved her out of the path the car, which was still going with its wheels spinning, before turning to the cyclist, before quickly deducing he was dead.

    Martin then went to switch off the car’s engine and started to wonder if holes in the windows of the car had been made by bullets.

    4 slain in French Alps; girl, possible witness, survives

    "It became fairly evident that the injuries of the people inside didn't match what one would think people would be like from a car accident," he said.

    But it was only when he moved round to the back of the car, that the situation became clear.

    Martin said it looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie.

    "If somebody had said 'cut' and everybody got up and walked away that would have been it, but unfortunately it was real life,” he told the BBC. "It became quite obvious now, taking stock, that it was a gun crime. Now I was getting a little bit anxious.

    "There was a lot of blood and heads with bullet holes in them," he added.

    Girl, 4, hid for eight hours in car filled with corpses after mystery shootings in France

    'Crazy person in the woods'
    Martin then looked around, fearing a "crazy person in the woods" might by firing from a distance with a high-powered rifle.

    Despite this danger, he tried to call the emergency number on his cellphone, but was unable to get a signal and had to go for help.

    Zainab came out of a medically-induced coma on Sunday and will be questioned by police as soon as she is fit.

    7-year-old survivor of French Alps slayings speaks to police

    Her four-year-old sister sister Zeena -- who was found hiding in the car hours after the shooting -- also survived. Martin told the BBC that it did not "surprise me in the least" that the girl was not found sooner because she was hidden beneath the bodies of the two women in the car.

    Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

    British police personnel carry out a search of the front garden at the home of Saad and Iqbal al-Hilli in Claygate, in Surrey, south-east England, Thursday.

    French investigators, who said about 25 gun shells had been retrieved from the area, traveled to Britain on Thursday to liaise with British detectives who have been searching the al-Hilli family home in a leafy village in Surrey, south of London.

    Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

    French prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters at a Surrey police station they believed "in all likelihood the origins, causes and explanations are here in this country."

    NBC News' Ian Johnston and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Alps slaying victims each shot twice in head; family home searched

    Laurent Cipriani / AP

    Flowers are seen Saturday at the crime scene where three people were shot to death in a British-registered car and a fourth was found nearby, in a forest near Chevaline in the French Alps.

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    Police from two countries on Saturday searched the Surrey, England, house of a British man shot dead in the French Alps with his wife and another woman.


    The search came as French forensics experts who performed autopsies on the three British victims and a passing local bicyclist who was also shot dead determined all four had been shot twice directly in the head.

    Iraqi-born aeronautics engineer al-Hilli, 50, his wife, Iqbal, 47, their two daughters and a 77-year-old woman thought to be Iqbal's mother, were holidaying in the Alps near Lake Annecy in the Haute Savoie when they were attacked Wednesday. The adults' bodies were found inside a British-registered maroon BMW at the end of a narrow track near the village of Chevaline.

    The passing cyclist was identified as Sylvain Mollier, 45, of Grenoble.

    Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

    British police officers stand Saturday outside a southeast England house believed to be the home of a family shot dead in their car in the French Alps.

    The Hillis' daughters, Zainab, 7, and Zeena, 4, survived and are under police protection after the Wednesday shootings on a remote forest road near the village of Chevaline. Zainab was shot in the shoulder and beaten. Zeena was found cowering under the skirt of her dead mother, where she had remained undetected for eight hours after French gendarmes sealed off the scene.

    Read more stories from the U.K.'s ITV News

    In Surrey, French police Col. Marc de Tarle, speaking outside police headquarters after his officers searched Saad al-Hilli's home nearby with a British forensics team, said the shooting investigation would be “long and complex,” the BBC reported.

    Two relatives of the al-Hilli family have gone to France, accompanied by a British social worker and family-liaison officers from Surrey police, to comfort the Hillis’s two daughters, who survived the attack, the BBC reported.

    The brother of a British man, murdered with his family in the French Alps, has denied reports of a family feud.  Police also revealed the four year old girl who survived the massacre saw nothing, because she'd hidden under her mother's skirts before the attack began. ITV's  Emma Murphy reports. 

    In France, State Prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters, "The autopsies on the four people found dead found there were several bullets, but each one had received two bullets in the full head," the Guardian newspaper of London reported.

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    "I cannot say if the killer or killers were professional; all I can say is there was an absolute determination to kill. To put two bullets in the head of each person shows that whoever was responsible for the terrible drama was determined to kill."

    "We don't know what the elder girl was hit with and we cannot say in what order the victims were shot,” Maillaud said. “It seems the scene happened very rapidly."

    Horrific details emerge after four people were killed in the French Alps but the motive behind the murders of an Iraqi-born British citizen, his wife and her mother is still unknown. A passing cyclist was also killed.

    He added the postmortem and ballistic reports had pushed the idea of the victims being targeted by a lone gunman "further down the list of hypotheses."

    Family feud behind massacre in French Alps?

    Maillaud said a family feud over money was one of several motives being considered for the murders and the brother of Saad al-Hilli would be formally questioned.

    "The brother says there was no dispute so let us remain cautious about that," he said.

    The prosecutor said investigators had gleaned little from their "moving" chat on Friday with Zeena, who is in a psychiatric hospital in Grenoble, accompanied by a nurse and British embassy staff. Zeena was found cowering terrified under the skirt of her dead mother, where she had remained undetected for eight hours after French gendarmes sealed off the scene.

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    Maillaud said members of the family had arrived on site, but declined to say who they were.

    Police hope Zainab, who was still in an artificial coma in a Grenoble hospital, will be able to eventually provide more information.

    "The two girls are doing as well as can be expected," Maillaud said.

    This article includes reporting by Reuters.

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  • Brother denies family conflict behind massacre in French Alps

    Horrific details emerge after four people were killed in the French Alps but the motive behind the murders of an Iraqi-born British citizen, his wife and her mother is still unknown. A passing cyclist was also killed.

    By NBC News, ITV News and wire services

     

    Updated 7:15 p.m. ET: The brother of a British man shot dead in the French Alps with his wife and two other people came forward to authorities and denied any conflict in the family, The Associated Press reported Friday, as investigators probed whether a money dispute among the siblings motivated the bloodshed. 

    Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, and her mother were found shot dead in a car on a remote road near Annecy Wednesday. A French cyclist was found dead nearby. Investigators were working to identify a fourth victim, an elderly Iraqi-born Swedish woman who was also in the car, The AP reported.  

    The al-Hillis' 7-year-old daughter Zainab was found seriously injured, but alive, while their 4-year-old daughter Zeena was discovered Thursday after hiding beneath her dead mother’s legs for eight hours.

    Three of the dead were shot in the forehead with a semi-automatic weapon, leading to speculation that the killings were a professional hit.

     Girl, 4, hid for eight hours in car filled with corpses after shootings in France

    On Friday, prosecutor Eric Maillaud told French news agency AFP that they were looking into "credible information" from British police about a family argument.

    Salvatore Di Nolfi / EPA

    Police escort the car in which three members of a British family were shot dead near Chevaline, France.

    "It seems that there was a dispute between the two brothers about money … The brother will have to be questioned at length. Every lead will be meticulously followed,” he said.

    On Friday, after learning of authorities' suspicion about a possible family feud, Zaid al-Hilli went to British police and told them, "I have no conflict with my brother," according to Eric Maillaud, a prosecutor in nearby Annecy.

    "This brother came forward spontaneously to investigators, first to ask simply about the state of his brother because he heard through British media that his brother was dead," Maillaud said, according to the AP.

    But a family friend produced a letter written by Saad that alluded to an inheritance dispute with Zaid in the wake of their father's recent death, the report said.

    In an effort to avoid tipping off the perpetrator or perpetrators, French authorities released only a handful of clues about the investigation.

    The U.K.'s Sky News said the prosecutor’s office had stressed the family dispute was just one of a number of possible scenarios being investigated by the authorities.

    Al-Hilli was born in Baghdad in 1962, but had lived in Britain since at least 2002. Public records identified him as a mechanical engineer and his LinkedIn page described him as an aerospace consultant.

    Detectives in France are facing criticism as to why the sole survivor in a brutal quadruple homicide in an Alpine town was not discovered alive until eight hours after the shooting. ITN's Damon Green.

    A British cyclist, reportedly a former member of Britain’s Royal Air Force, was the first on the scene of the shootings at about 4 p.m. Wednesday, when he came upon al-Hilli’s BMW with its engine running. The three dead al-Hilli family members were inside the car with the French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 40, lying dead outside.

    Mollier, who had no ties to the family, had passed the British cyclist on the road earlier. The British man put the seven-year-old girl in the recovery position and called emergency services. He has been credited with saving her life.

    "He had a strong command of his nerves. We must welcome his action and congratulate him," Maillaud said Wednesday.

    ITV News reported that autopsies would be carried out on the dead Friday as the hunt for clues continues.

    It is also hoped the children will have information useful to the investigators.

    Justin Tallis / AFP - Getty Images

    A police officer stands in the front a house in Claygate, south-east England, on Thursday which is believed to be where the al-Hilli family lived.

    British Ambassador to France, Sir Peter Ricketts, told ITV News Friday that they were trying to help the children involved in what he described as an “awful and heart-rending story."


    "What we can do is help these poor little girls with some English-speaking, friendly consular people to be with them," he said.

    Read more stories from the U.K.'s ITV News

    Ricketts said the younger child, who was not physically hurt, was "deeply traumatized."

    U.K. officials had not been able to visit her older sister for medical reasons, he said, but added she was in a stable condition. On Thursday, French officials said her injuries were no longer life-threatening.

    ITV News is NBC's U.K. partner. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Girl, 4, hid for eight hours in car filled with corpses after mystery shootings in France

    Norbert Falco/Le Dauphine / EPA

    French Police officers cordon off the road leading to a gruesome scene where four people were shot dead near Annecy Lake, a popular tourist destination at the foothills of the French Alps.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 10:52 p.m. ET: Immobilized with fear, a 4-year-old British girl huddled for eight hours under her slain mother's skirt in a car filled with corpses in a remote area at the foothills of the French Alps — while investigators stood nearby, unaware she was there.

    Thursday's discovery of the girl, apparently unharmed, heightened the drama surrounding a mysterious shooting rampage that left four adults dead and a 7-year-old girl hospitalized with three bullet wounds and skull fractures. The older girl had been "violently beaten," the Guardian of London reported.

    Around 4 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, a British cyclist cruising uphill came across a chilling scene: A BMW, its engine running, had three people dead inside. Nearby was a dead cyclist -- the British cyclist recognized him because he passed him on the road. Outside the car, a 7-year-old girl was gravely wounded and appeared to have been beaten.

    The British cyclist, who, according to the Sun had been in the Royal Air Force, immediately placed the 7-year-old girl in "recovery position." He then walked around the car and broke the driver's side window to turn off the car.

    The motive for these slayings remains unclear, and French authorities have not ruled out that this could be the work of a professional hitman. Three of the dead were shot in the forehead with a semi-automatic weapon -- which means the shooter had to pull the trigger for every shot. About 15 bullet casings were found near the car.

    "All the possible scenarios have been images -- from the smallest, family drama," Prosecutor Eric Maillaud said, according to French media. "We have very, very few clues."

    Maillaud described the slayings, in a wooded area near the southeastern village of Chevaline, as an act of "gross savagery." He said the scene found by officers was "well beyond television fiction."


    Of the four dead, three were in the car, believed to be a British-Iraqi family vacationing at a campground on the shores of Lake Annecy, a popular retreat in the French Alps. The owners of the campground told investigators that the victims included two parents and a grandmother.

    Investigators identified the driver of the car as Saad al-Hilli, 50, a British citizen and engineer from Surrey, England, who was born in Baghdad and moved to England in 1970, according to the Sipa news agency. Police in Surrey, a largely suburban county southwest of London, said they are talking with French authorities about the case.

    Hilli is a respected member of the community, neighbors told British reporters.

    "They are quite beautiful kids and so well behaved. He was an extraordinarily nice man and helpful. He was a very tactile loving father. He loved to gather the girls up and cuddle them," Jack Saltman, a neighbor, told the Guardian. "They would go running at him and he'd catch them in his arms and kiss them. He adored them. His wife was a delightful person and I can't think why anybody would want to harm them."

    NBC News reported that al-Hilli worked as an engineer in aeronautics.

    The eldest woman has a Swedish passport and has been identified in the British press as grandmother to the two girls.

    See full coverage of this story at ITV News

    The fourth victim was French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 40, a father who apparently stumbled across the grisly murder in progress, police said. He was shot five times, at least one time in the forehead, le Dauphine Libere reported. He was on paternity leave from a job at a factory linked to nuclear manufacturer Areva after his third child was born in June.

    Mollier had no ties to the British family; he was identified only after his wife reported him missing.

    "A woman was worried because her husband went to cycle in this area and didn't come back home," Maillaud said. "He was just cycling in that area and got killed along with this British family."

    'She was completely hidden'
    French authorities struggled to explain why the 4-year-old wasn't discovered earlier and was left for hours alone in the back seat of the car.

    Said Maillaud, according to France's Liberation newspaper: "Initially, a doctor determined that the people in the car were dead. He went to the bodies, determined they were deceased, and he removed himself. There were clothes, bags, and this little girl who remained rigorously still. Even with a thermal heat detector, this little girl was not detected. The doctors who approached the car could not detect this girl because she was completely hidden."

     4 slain in French Alps; girl, possible witness, survives

    The car was under guard until midnight, when special investigators arrived from the Paris area and found the girl.

    Maillaud said as soon as investigators opened the door, the girl emerged, smiled and reached out her arms; she spoke English but couldn't describe what had happened and was taken into police care.

    The 7-year-old girl remains hospitalized. She was placed in an artificial coma but her life is not in danger, Maillaud said Thursday. Both girls are under armed guard.

    The Associated Press and NBC's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report. ITV News is the U.K. partner of NBC News. 

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  • I'd like a beer, 70-year-old says after icy 6-day ordeal in Alps

    By Andy Eckardt, NBC News

    MAINZ, Germany -- A 70-year old German man was rescued Tuesday from the Austrian Alps, where he was stuck for six days in a crevasse nearly 10,000-feet above sea level.

    The man, who was not named, survived by eating rations of a chocolate bar and drinking melted glacier water, officials said.

    Medical officials expressed surprise that he had survived for so long in such icy conditions.

    "One of the treating physicians told us that one of the first things the 70-year-old asked for was a beer with a shot of lemonade," said Johannes Schwamberger, spokesman for the hospital in Innsbruck, Austria, where the man was being treated after his rescue.

    Climbing alone
    The man, who hailed from the southeast German state of Bavaria, had been touring by himself Schrankogel mountain in the central eastern Alpine region of Stubai without the safety of a rope.


    "It's a wonder he survived for so long," Gerhard Baumann, from the Austrian mountain rescue team, told NBC News.

    "Climbers are always being told not to hike the mountains alone, to be in regular contact with relatives or friends and to be roped at all times, especially on a glacier," Baumann explained.

    More Europe coverage on NBCNews.com

    'Cold was his biggest enemy'
    Rescuers pulled the man out of the crevasse after other climbers had heard his screaming.

    "Because the man had no serious injuries, it was not so difficult to pull him out of the crevasse," Baumann said.

    Germany arrests 4 suspected of violating Iran embargo

    "The man had fallen between 10 and 15 meters (32-50 feet) into the crevasse and was resting on a ledge -- the cold was his biggest enemy," Baumann added.

    The man was airlifted to a hospital in Innsbruck, where he is recovering from his ordeal in the intensive care unit. Hospital officials told NBC News that the man has no life-threatening injuries and is in stable condition.

    Complete international coverage on NBCNews.com

    Doctors were checking his kidneys, to see whether they have been affected by drinking only mineral-free glacier water.

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  • Six killed in helicopter crash in French Alps

    Duclet Stephane / EPA

    Rescue crews and police inspect the scene of a helicopter crash in La Palud sur Verdon, southeast of France, on July 25, 2012.

    By Reuters

    Six employees of aircraft maker Eurocopter were killed when their helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of southeast France on Wednesday during a test flight, police and company officials said.

    The crash occurred around 1:30 p.m. in a steep section of the Verdon Gorge in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region near the border with Italy, according to local police.


    Police said a preliminary investigation suggested the helicopter may have hit an electric cable.

    Eurocopter, a unit of European aerospace group EADS, said in a statement that the downed aircraft was a Cougar AS532 AL helicopter and that six people were on board.

    It had taken off shortly before the crash from a heliport near the Mediterranean port city of Marseille for a test flight before delivery to a client.

    The six people on board were company employees and included test engineers, a Eurocopter spokeswoman said.

    Police said search teams were at the site investigating the cause of the crash.

    "The accident occurred in a place that's very difficult to access, which is complicating our work," Benoit Gounine, a regional police lieutenant, told Reuters.

    Eurocopter's website described the helicopter as a military aircraft that can accommodate 25 combat-ready troops or be used for search and rescue, medical evacuation or fire support missions, among other uses.

    The Verdon Gorge is a stunning river canyon, popular with hikers, that runs about 2,300 feet deep.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Blog chronicles joy of Belgian kids before Swiss bus crash

    At least 22 children were killed in Switzerland after their bus crashed on the way home from a ski trip. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By msnbc.com news services

    Updated at 6:06 p.m. ET: SION, Switzerland/HEVERLEE, Belgium -- A torchlight march. Ravioli and meatball dinners. Rides in a funicular railway. A sing-a-long and a dress-up casino evening.

    Those were some of the things that made last week "mega-cool" for 24 sixth graders at the St. Lambertus school in a hotel in Saint-Luc, high in the Swiss Alps.

    The good times turned tragic Tuesday when their bus, which also carried kids from a second Belgian school, crashed inside a Swiss tunnel on its way home. Twenty-two youngsters from the two different schools died, along with six adults.

    The dead included "teacher Frank," who had set up the native-language Dutch blog that had kept parents and schoolchildren who stayed home informed about all the fun.

    On Wednesday parents were flown to Switzerland to find out whether their children were still alive. Sixteen St. Lambertus students were confirmed to have survived, but the fate of eight others was unknown, at least to their families.

    Nine days earlier, they had left for the holiday of their school lives in the snow-covered Alps of Switzerland, an annual highlight for St. Lambertus kids. The school is a typical, small Roman Catholic institution of some 200 pupils in Heverlee, on the outskirts of the old university town Leuven, and represents the broad mix of social classes of the municipality.

    The week began flawlessly.

    "This is our first blog posting," wrote Frank Van Kerckhove, the teacher who set up the blog. "The bus trip was very smooth. There was little traffic. We watched the movie Avatar (and) no one became car sick on the climb" into the Alps.

    PhotoBlog: Grief, disbelief as Belgian schoolchildren learn of crash that killed classmates

    In the days that followed, the youngsters posted about their vacation with youthful exuberance.

    "This afternoon we had soup and ravioli, very delicious," one girl wrote on March 6.

    Relatives of the students were grateful that Van Kerckhove, one of six adults who died in the crash, had set up the site.

    Most of the victims were 12-year-olds returning from a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    "The blog was incredible. It had so many great pictures," said Anne De Roo, whose three children are former students at the school. The fate of her nephew was now uncertain.

    "He constantly gave us news about what happened, the sked of the day," she said of Van Kerckhove. His last words came down to 'we see you back soon,'" she said.

    The kids would blog under Van Kerckhove's tutelage.

    "Today was totally the best. The adventurous walk was tiring, but mega-cool," one girl wrote. "We won first prize for cleanest room. Tomorrow it's going to be colder. Byyyeeee!"

    On March 10, another boy wrote: "Things are super here in Saint-Luc. The skiing, the weather, the food. It's not bad at all. Tomorrow I play in the Muppet Show. ... I have seen quite a few dogs. I'm now reading the book 'Why Dogs Have Wet Noses.' Very interesting! I miss you all."

    Toward week's end, the posts revealed early signs of homesickness.

    "Dear mama and papa. I like it here a lot, but I miss you. Love you. Kisses." And: "Hey, mama, papa ... It is super here and the sun shines the whole day. But I do miss you! XXX."

    The posts came with scores of photos the youngsters made during their trip.

    On the St. Lambertus school gate Wednesday, staff put up drawings made by students to honor the teacher. "I'll never forget you, Teacher Frank," one read. "You are the greatest ever!"

    And outside the school, parents spoke highly of Van Kerckhove. Teary-eyed, some recalled his last post, dated March 11 — the eve of the return trip.

    "Tomorrow will be a busy day and I do not know if I can write a blog posting," Van Kerckhove wrote. "But on Wednesday we'll be back, all of us."

    'There are no words'
    Swiss President Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, speaking at a news conference Wednesday in the town of Sion near the crash site, paid tribute to the victims and the 200 rescue workers who pulled injured from the wreckage.

    "We are here to understand better, there is consternation. When a drama like this happens, when we lose a child or have a child suffering in hospital, there are no words. It is important to console the families," Di Rupo said.

    Twenty-one of the dead were Belgian nationals and seven were Dutch, according to Swiss officials. The Dutch foreign ministry said three Dutch children in the bus were injured. Most children aboard were aged about 12.

    Belgium plans to hold a national day of mourning.

    About 200 police, firefighters, doctors and medics worked through the night at the scene, while 12 ambulances and eight helicopters took the injured to hospitals in the region.

    Widmer-Schlumpf, a mother of three, said that Switzerland was doing everything to support victims and their families.

    Olivier Elsig, prosecutor for Valais canton (state), said that video surveillance images from the tunnel, where the speed limit is 100 kmh (62 mph), showed no other vehicle was involved in the accident and the road was dry and in "good condition."

    "The bus did not appear to be travelling too fast," Elsig told the news conference. "I immediately ordered an autopsy of the deceased driver."

    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.

    The bus had travelled only 15-20 km (10 10 13 miles) from the Swiss ski resort of Val d'Anniviers before entering the tunnel. "The children were all wearing seat belts but the shock of the crash was violent," he said.

    There were three possible causes for the crash: a technical problem; the driver may have become ill; or human error, according to Elsig.

    About 100 family members, who flew to Geneva from Belgium, were taken by buses to the Valais canton. Some began visiting injured children in Sion hospital, while others were being counseled by psychologists in crisis groups.

    A mortuary was set up and bodies were being identified. 

    Most pupils were from the towns of Lommel and Heverlee in Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flanders region.

    A police photograph showed the bus had smashed into the side of a tunnel, with the front ripped open, broken glass and debris strewn on the road and rescue workers climbing in through side windows. It was later towed away from the scene.

    Police were alerted to the accident by images on surveillance cameras in the tunnel.

    "It gives you chills down the spine. Witnessing such a drama involving children takes away my voice," police spokesman Jean-Marie Bornet told Swiss television earlier.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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