A train collides with a minibus of children in Belgium and 4 people are dead

BUGGENHOUT, Belgium (AP) — A train traveling at high speed hit a minibus crossing a railway in Belgium on Tuesday, killing four people, including two children, and badly injuring five other children in what officials called one of the worst rail accidents in the country’s history.

It appeared that the minibus drove through the closed crossing barrier, officials said. A security camera showed the bus, carrying nine people, was moving when the train hit it. The collision happened during morning rush hour near Buggenhout town, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the capital, Brussels.

Click to Gallery

A hearse drives away at a level crossing where a train collided with a school van in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

Emergency personnel work at a level crossing where a train collided with a school van in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

Emergency personnel work at a level crossing to move a van onto a flatbed truck after it collided with a train in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

Police tape cordons off a level crossing where a train collided with a van in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

Police and rescue personal work around a level crossing where a train collided with a van in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

A vehicle lays on its side next to a house after a collision between a train and a van at a level crossing in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

Police and residents gather around a level crossing where a train collided with a van in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)

This video grab shows rescue workers on the scene of a crash between a train and vehicle in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (VTM via AP)

Rescue workers on the scene of a crash between a train and vehicle in Buggenhout, Belgium, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Koen Baten)

The bus driver and an escort were killed along with two children aged 12 and 15, said Lisa De Wilde, spokesperson for the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office. She said the injured children were hospitalized in serious condition.

De Wilde told journalists the cause of the crash hadn’t been established.

“What we do know is that the barrier was closed and the red light was on,” she said.

Federal Police spokesperson An Berger said the minibus driver appeared to have plowed through the barrier. Infrabel said the crossing was working correctly.

The train had been traveling at an estimated 120 kph (75 mph) as it approached the crossing and had “no time to brake,” said Frédéric Sacré, a spokesperson for Belgian rail operator Infrabel.

“The impact was extremely violent,” Sacré told the RTBF public broadcaster.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the bus was toppled on its side with its front section crushed. The train was relatively unscathed.

It was believed about 100 passengers were aboard the train and that none were hurt. Rail traffic in the area was halted. Local officials stood for a minute’s silence after a news conference.

In a post on social media, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said he was “deeply moved by the horrific accident in Buggenhout. My thoughts go out to the affected families.”

Children played basketball and rode bicycles at a school not far from the scene.

——

Cook reported from Brussels. Mike Corder contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s push to reshape congressional districts ahead of the November elections suffered a double setback Tuesday, as South Carolina senators declined to do so and a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.

Some senators said it was simply too late to make a change.

“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said.

The political drama in South Carolina is part of a Republican strategy — propelled by Trump — to redraw voting districts to the GOP’s advantage in an attempt to hold on to a slim House majority in the midterm elections. Republicans have been moving quickly to try to leverage a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act.

In Alabama, a three-judge federal panel issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state from using a Republican-drawn congressional map that could help the GOP win an additional seat. The court said the plan “intentionally discriminated based on race” by including only one Black-majority district, and it ordered the continued use of a court-imposed map that includes two districts with a significant proportion of Black residents.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, vowed a quick appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and predicted an eventual victory.

Republicans remain ahead in a national mid-decade redistricting battle. But Democrats, who have suffered their own share of setbacks, praised the turn of events in Alabama.

The “fight for justice is far from over in states across the country where politicians are enacting gerrymanders on top of gerrymanders to erase equal representation for communities of color,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Voting districts typically are redrawn after a census at the start of a decade. But Trump has urged Republican-led states to redistrict ahead of the November elections to try to rebuff political headwinds, which typically result in lost congressional seats for the president’s party in midterms.

Since Trump first urged Texas to redraw its voting districts last summer, Republicans also have enacted new House districts in Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from those efforts, and perhaps 15 if they eventually win the ability to use a different map in Alabama.

Meanwhile, Democrats think they could win five additional seats from new voter-approved districts in California, plus one more from a new court-imposed map in Utah. Democrats suffered a setback earlier this month in Virginia, where the state Supreme Court invalidated a voter-approved redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win additional seats.

Redistricting discussions are ongoing in Louisiana following an April high court ruling that struck down a majority-Black congressional district as an illegal partisan gerrymander. The Louisiana House could vote later this week on a new map that could eliminate a seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and improve Republicans’ chances of winning six out of the state’s seven seats.

The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts. That comes after the caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers.

More than 32,000 votes had been cast in South Carolina by 1 p.m. Tuesday on the first day of early voting for the June 9 primary after Democrats called for people against a proposed new map to turn out in force. In 2022, about 125,000 early votes were cast in the entire two weeks.

Among the first to cast an early ballot in the small city of Orangeburg was U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the Democrat whose district Republicans were trying to reshape in their quest for a clean sweep of South Carolina’s seven congressional seats. A defiant Clyburn insisted he would run for reelection, regardless of what the district looks like.

“I’m OK if it’s Trump plus 20,” Clyburn said while describing the potential Republican advantage in a reshaped district. “I would be running where I live.”

The Republican-led House already had passed a plan that would reconfigure Clyburn’s district, void the results of current congressional primaries and instead hold new U.S. House primaries in August.

Trump had lobbied for the plan, making at least two phone calls to Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey and also phoning in to a private meeting of Republican senators earlier this month. He also had maintained the pressure on social media.

But debate stalled in the Senate, where Democrats were staunchly opposed and some GOP lawmakers had concerns that an aggressive redistricting could backfire by making some Republican-held seats susceptible to losses because of the addition of Democratic voters.

Clyburn noted that when state lawmakers last redrew congressional districts, after the 2020 census, they spent months holding meetings across the state to gather public suggestions. Although that map resulted in a 6-1 seat advantage for Republicans over Democrats, the process was orderly and fair, he said.

“When the map was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court said, yes, this is constitutional,” Clyburn said. But now, “this White House says, to hell with the process, to hell with the Constitution, just do what we want done.”

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

A train collides with a minibus of children in Belgium and 4 people are dead

Tags: