Two children were killed and six others were injured after a bus plowed into a kindergarten in Laval, a suburb of Montreal, on Wednesday morning, police said, CBC News reported, News.ro reported.

Two children died after a bus driver drove into a kindergarten in CanadaPhoto: Anne-Sophie THILL / AFP / Profimedia

The incident happened around 8:30 a.m. local time (3:30 p.m. Romanian time), when the children were brought and dropped off by their parents at the kindergarten. The circumstances of the accident or possible motives are unknown.

The eyewitness said that he and a group of parents tried to save the children who were under the bus and managed to calm down the driver, who was behaving strangely.

Hamdi Ben Chaabane, who lives in the neighborhood and was one of the first to arrive at the scene, said the bus was probably traveling at 30 or 40 km/h when it crashed into the kindergarten. “From what I saw, it was not an accident,” he said.

After the bus hit the kindergarten, the driver got out and started behaving strangely. “He opened the door. He took off all his clothes. He was completely naked,” Ben Chaabane said. “We don’t know why he did it. We rushed at him. We tried to calm him down,” the man said. He described the driver as being in another world.”

“It was a nightmare. It’s horrible. He didn’t stop screaming. He couldn’t say a word,” said Ben Chaabane.

Six children who were taken to the hospital are not life-threatening, the police said. In addition to the children, six more people were admitted to the hospital, one of them is in a state of shock.

The bus driver, a 51-year-old Laval Municipal Transportation System employee, was arrested for manslaughter and reckless driving, a police spokesman said.

Police declined to provide further details, but said they were investigating the incident and questioning the driver. He worked in public transport for 10 years and has no experience.

Authorities have not confirmed the ages of the children, but according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, about 80 children under the age of 5 attend the facility.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, as well as the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, expressed their condolences to the families after the incident.

Laval is about 30 km northwest of Montreal in Quebec, Canada’s second most populous province.