Twenty-four people, most of them teenagers, died on Friday when a heavily-laden truck skidded on dark icy roads in central Finland and smashed into their bus in the country's worst ever traffic accident, officials said.
The crash also left 15 teenagers injured, some of them seriously, and many of them underwent major surgery throughout Friday, medical personnel said.
"It's the worst traffic accident in our history," government spokesman Mikko Norros told AFP.
The accident left the nation in shock, and the Finnish government declared a national day of mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half-mast throughout the country.
The government held a minute of silence before getting down to work Friday, while church bells rang for 24 minutes - one minute for each victim - in the Aeaenekoski church near the scene of the accident.
The Archbishop of Helsinki also held an emotional prayer vigil in the capital's cathedral at noon.
The bus had left the capital Helsinki late Thursday carrying a group of youngsters on their way to a skiing holiday in the northern province of Lapland, a popular ski area, police said.
The teenagers were almost halfway on their 800-kilometer (500-mile) journey to the Ruka ski resort, on the border with Russia, when the accident occurred at 2:00 am (0000 GMT) on a remote highway in central Finland's lake district.
The 38-tonne truck, laden with paper bound for Poland, came out of a curve and down a gently sloping hill when the driver lost control on the icy road and his trailer collided with the north-bound bus coming in the opposite direction, emergency officials said.
"It seems that the truck was sliding, because the road was very icy and slippery, and the truck came on to the wrong side of the road and hit the bus," said Tuomo Puranen, a police constable with the police in Aeaenekoski, near the scene.
The impact of crash ripped loose several large 700-kilo (1,650 pounds) rolls of fine paper from the trailer, catapulting them at high speed into the bus at passenger height, Jarmo Arpiainen, a fireman and paramedic at the scene, said.
The front end of the bus was completely demolished by the impact, while the truck and trailer appeared relatively intact.
The accident happened on a straight stretch of highway surrounded by open fields. Both the bus and the truck landed partially in the ditch.
The night before it had rained heavily in the area, but at the time of the accident the temperature was minus two degrees Centigrade (28 degrees Fahrenheit).
Rescue personnel speculated that the truck driver might not have noticed that the surface of the road had frozen and become slippery.
"When we got there, it seemed very bad, like a catastrophe. Many people were lost, and we could not do anything for them, and many died immediately in the crash," Arpiainen told AFP.
"Many were stuck in the bus, and we had to spend hours cutting them out."
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