Paralympics scrap closing celebrations

The Athens Paralympics cancelled celebrations at its closing ceremony after seven schoolchildren travelling to watch the event died in a bus crash yesterday.

The school bus, on its way to Athens from central Greece, collided with a truck. Thirty people were injured, 26 of them pupils in their mid-teens, police said. Of 41 people on the bus, only four escaped unscathed.

"The Paralympics Organising Committee announces the cancellation of celebrations at the closing ceremony (today)... due to the tragic accident," a statement said. Organisers had planned a visually stunning celebration for the end of the Games, in which disabled athletes compete.

Instead they will go ahead with just a brief athletes' parade, a speech by the International Paralympic Committee chief and the handing over of the flag to Beijing, host of the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A minute's silence was observed yesterday at all sports venues in remembrance of the victims.

Thousands of Greek children on school trips have come to Athens to watch the Paralympics, which started two weeks after the end of the Athens 2004 Games and have involved more than 4,000 disabled athletes from 140 nations. The event is held every four years at the same venue as the Olympics.