Closing Ceremony artistic part cancelled due to accident
27 Sept. 2004 16:29:
ATHENS, 27 September - The ATHENS 2004 Organising Committee (ATHOC) has decided to cancel the planned entertainment portions of the Closing Ceremony of the XIIth Paralympic Games, due to the tragic road accident that claimed the lives of high school students who were traveling to Athens to attend the Paralympic Games.
The Closing Ceremony will only entail the protocol segments (entry of athletes, Speech by the IPC President Mr. Phil CRAVEN, handover of the Paralympic Flag to the Beijing Organising Committee, extinguishing of the Flame).
Ticket holders who wish to attend the revised program are welcome to do so.
Ticket holders who decide not to attend the Closing Ceremony will be refunded the amount they have paid, by presenting their ticket(s) through a procedure that will be announced by ATHOC in the following days.
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Seven schoolchildren die in car crash en route to Paralympic Games
27 Sept. 2004 14:31
ATHENS, 27 September - Seven schoolchildren were killed and over 30 were injured, Monday, when a bus carrying Senior High School students to watch the Paralympic Games collided with a truck on the Athens-Lamia E75 National Highway.
The bus had left the village of Farkadona, near Trikkala, in Thessaly, central Greece (some 300 kilometres north of Athens) early Monday morning to bring the students to the capital for the second-to-last day of the Paralympic Games. The accident happened at 10:00 hours, between the towns of Kammena Vourla and Aghios Konstantinos, in the Prefecture of Phthiotis.
Most of the injured were admitted in the hospital of the city of Lamia, while a student with severed limb was transferred by helicopter to Larissa.
According to Traffic Police sources the causes of the accident are still uncertain, pending an investigation.
The 60-year-old truck driver and the 22-year-old bus driver are being held for questioning at the Kammena Vourla Police Station.
The stretch known as the "Maliakos Horseshoe", an 180-degree curve around the Maliakos Gulf, is considered the most dangerous part of the E75 Highway and has been the site of several serious accidents in the past.
The bus was part of a convoy of over 40 buses transporting students from villages of Trikkala to the Paralympic Games. Following the accident most of the buses returned home.
PNS cd/mt
