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Stavropol governor presents condolences to families, friends of bus accident victims.

PYATIGORSK, May 13 (Itar-Tass) —— Stavropol Governor Valery Zerenkov has presented condolences to Kabardino-Balkaria head Arsen Kanokov, the families and friends of the victims of the Sunday bus accident near Pyatigorsk.

“The death of children is a terrible tragedy that shakes our hearts. Operative services and doctors are doing their best to assist the injured and to help the families of the dead. An operative staff has been formed, and I am monitoring its work,” he said.

“This is a day of sorrow for all of us. Please, convey my condolences to the grieving families,” the governor said.

“Two buses collided on the 4th kilometer of the Obkhod-Inozemtsevo road at approximately 12:20 p.m. Moscow time. The bus carrying children braked and the other bus en route from Nalchik to Moscow hit it in the back. The bus carrying children fell down into a ditch. Two children and a woman died instantly. The other woman died at the hospital,” the police said.

According to an updated report of the Kabardino-Balkaria traffic police, the bus carrying the Arabesk children’s ensemble of the Tyrnauz children’s art school to a national contest in Zheleznovodsk had 20 people aboard, including 17 schoolchildren, two accompanying women and the driver.

The Pyatigorsk central hospital has 18 patients from the bus accident, including five in the intensive care unit. Three of them are in grave condition.

Earlier reports said that the seriously injured patients might be transferred to Moscow, but the operative staff said there would be no transportation of patients until morning. A team of doctors involving specialists of the Russian Health and Social Development Ministry will decide whether the transportation is possible.

Doctors from the Kabardino-Balkaria Republican Hospital have come to Pyatigorsk. The Moscow Pediatrics and Children’s Surgery Institute sent a team of a surgeon, a neurosurgeon, a trauma surgeon and an anesthesiologist, the Russian Health and Social Development Ministry said.

“Lightly injured patients also need help, at least from the psychologists. So everyone will stay where one is, at least until morning,” the operative staff said.