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Columbia University Holds Vigil For 3 Students Killed In Honduras

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Columbia University community held a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for three students who were killed last week in a bus crash in Honduras.

Three students and a U.S. health care worker – all women – were killed on Wednesday of last week when the bus crashed while taking them to the airport to fly home after a volunteer mission helping poor Hondurans.

The students killed were 20-year-old Columbia sophomore Olivia Erhardt, 21-year-old Barnard junior Daniella Moffson and 45-year-old Abigail Flanagan, a nurse practitioner at Columbia University Medical Center and a student at the university's School of General Studies.

The university tweeted a photo of students holding candles and mourning in the frigid air on campus early Tuesday evening.

Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger said other Columbia students were injured in the accident. He said they were volunteering for the Columbia chapter of U.S.-based Global Brigades, which organizes international health and development missions.

The group had been volunteering for several days with doctors and pharmacists as part of a medical mission in San Juancito and Valle de Angeles.

They were on their way to the airport to return to the U.S. when, officials said, the bus veered off a road on a highway east of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. It then fell at least 260 feet into a ravine.

Columbia offered emotional support to students following the accident.

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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