At least 18 people killed after crashed German tour bus bursts into flames
There were 46 people on the bus at the time of the accident near the Czech border
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At least 18 people were killed after a tour bus carrying pensioners burst into flames following a collision with a truck in southern Germany on Monday, police said.
News channel NTV broadcast images of the vehicle’s charred skeleton.
“It’s clear now that all 18 of the missing people on the bus died in the accident,” police said on Twitter.
Another police spokeswoman, Anne Hoefer, said that the passengers were “old people” and that some may not have made it out of the bus.
Some of the 30 passengers pulled out of the burning bus were seriously hurt, added Stadter.
The bus carrying 46 passengers and two drivers rammed into the trailer in a traffic jam on the motorway A9 close to the Bavarian town of Stammbach.
The crash shortly after 7 am sent the bus up in flames.
According to the Bild newspaper, the coach was travelling from the eastern region of Lausitz and heading for Nuremberg.
The accident struck near the town Bayreuth, which draws thousands of classical music lovers every summer to its opera festival.
The region close to the Czech border is also dotted with spas and castles, and the A9 is a trunk motorway leading to many popular summer holiday spots.
An emergency team, including firefighters and rescue workers, were at the scene, while traffic on the motorway was halted in both directions.
Those hurt were being flown by rescue helicopters to hospitals, many with life-threatening injuries.
If those missing are confirmed killed, the accident at the start of the summer holiday season would be one of the worst to hit Germany.
Among the deadliest in recent years was a collision in June 2007, when 13 people were killed as their tour bus drove off the road and plunged several metres down a slope in eastern Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state.
In September 1992, 21 people died when a bus swerved out of its lane and struck a truck before ramming into the road divider in the southern Black Forest region, a key tourist destination.
In France, a head-on crash in October 2015 between a truck and a bus carrying pensioners claimed 43 lives as both vehicles burst into flames.
Additional reporting by Reuters
