This is one of those tragedies that is just impossible to fathom:

A bus transporting Polish pilgrims from a holy site in the French Alps plunged off a steep mountain road, crashed into a river bank and burst into flames yesterday, killing 26 people, authorities said.

Fourteen others were seriously injured in the disaster, which occurred at about 9.30am near the village of Vizille, not far from Grenoble, officials from the prefecture of the Isere region said.

Residents of Notre-Dame-de-Mesage, a nearby town, said the bus missed a 90-degree bend in the steep mountain road. The bus ploughed through a barrier and plunged about 65 feet onto the banks of the La Romanche River, bursting into flames on impact, firefighters said.

“When the bus was burning, there were injured people inside,” said Philippe Baret, owner of the field where the bus landed. “I saw at least six of them who were stuck inside the bus and burned to death before my very eyes.”

He said he helped pull injured people and bodies out of the bus before flames engulfed it.

Victims were evacuated by helicopter to hospitals in Grenoble. Crews searched the river by helicopter and boat for a handful of missing passengers.

All that remained of the bus was its charred frame, with pieces strewn across the river bank.

Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Robert Szaniawski said in Warsaw that there were 50 people on the bus; French media reported between 50-60 people on board.

The group was returning from the shrine of Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette, about 25 miles south of Grenoble.

Most were in their 50s to 70s, but among them were three children – a 12-year-old and two 13-year-olds – and several pilgrims in their 20s and 30s, said Marcin Szklarski, president of Orlando Travel, the agency that organised the pilgrimage.

They left Poland on July 10 for a two-week visit to famous sanctuaries in France, Spain, and Portugal, including shrines in Lourdes, France, and Fatima, Portugal, he said in Skawina, Poland, outside Krakow.

Three priests also were on board the bus, said the Reverend Slawomir Zyga, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Szczecin, Poland. One called the church after the accident.

“He said he was shaken up and bloody, but alive,” Zyga told Poland’s TVN24. “We have no information on the other two priests.”

Our prayers go out to all those lost in this tragedy, and those who grieve for them. Our Lady of La Salette, pray for us, and for them.

The story of the haunting apparition at La Salette — in which the Blessed Mother appeared weeping — is one that is often lost in all the attention that has been focused on Lourdes and Fatima. But it preceded Lourdes, and ushered in the modern era of Marian apparitions. You can read more about it right here. There is also a shrine to Our Lady of La Salette in Massachusetts.