Minns said the impact of the crash had been “heartbreaking”, but he was moved by reports of generosity, including people offering their homes to the families of victims visiting from interstate.
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Rotary’s president in Singleton, Gerard McMillan, said the funds would be particularly important for the two young children whose parents, Lynan and Andrew Scott, were among the 10 who died. He hoped to eventually raise $1 million in donations.
“There are two young children who have lost their parents. They are going to need ongoing support,” he said.
As the horror of the crash sinks in, focus turns to the fallout. Among the visitors to the site of the crash on Wednesday was NSW Health Minister Ryan Park.
He met with paramedics who were at the scene in the early hours of Monday dealing with something “the likes that none of them had ever seen”, and insisted both they and the wider community would have access to mental health care in the weeks and months ahead.
“I’ve told them whatever they need, they get,” he said.
Those killed or who remain unaccounted for in the Hunter Valley bus crash.
“We know with trauma like this, it’s often in the weeks and months ahead, not necessarily the days, where people need the most support. What we have got to do is make sure that when the cameras go, when the lights and sirens stop, that the support remains.”
Park recounted a conversation with a paramedic who told the minister he was “thinking about what they could have done better or differently”, saying it exemplified “the care they have for everyone else, but not themselves”.
“This is a person who performed what I think were miracles,” he said.
“Yes, they are highly trained. Yes, they practice for these scenarios. But they are human beings.”
Australian rules football matches have been called off in the Hunter this weekend in a show of respect for the Singleton Roosters Australian rules football club, who lost eight people linked to the club. It has its own memorial, a clutch of flowers in the centre circle, and held a private vigil there on Tuesday night.
Singleton mayor Sue Moore appeared visibly shaken by the impact of the crash, and said preparations were under way for a formal vigil.
“Singleton as a whole just wants to put our arms around them and care for them, but we also appreciate that they want their time just as a group and we respect that,” she said.
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“It’s a very long healing process. Step by step, day by day.”
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