. national day of mourning announced

Saturday, February 21, 2009, the day, this changed many lives. This day belongs to “black days” in history of the Slovak republic. In one of the worst traffic accidents in Slovakia’s history, a collision of a bus with a train near the village of Polomka, which is situated in central Slovakia, claimed 12 lives. When the bus was trying to cross a railway crossing without electronic warning system, the driver did not hear the comer train. The train hit the bus and pushed the vehicle on the railway track for about twenty meters. Passengers, majority of them were people in the middle age from Bánovce nad Bebravou, were carrying on the two-days trip to the ski resort Bučník. The bus driver, survived the crash with injuries and was taken to one of the nearby hospitals. The injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Banská Bystrica and Brezno. Prime Minister Robert Fico, Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny and Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák appeared at the accident site to coordinate rescue efforts. Prime Minister Fico announced a national day of mourning for February 22. The national flags flew at half on Sunday. This is the third national day of mourning in Slovakia's history. The first such day was announced on January 23, 2006 to pay tribute to 43 army servicemen and women killed four days earlier in an air crash on their way back from a mission of duty in Kosovo. The second was declared on September 9, 2008, dedicated to the victims of a fatal Slovak bus crash in Croatia that claimed 14 lives.