Bus Fire in Germany Kills 20 People

Twenty people, most of them elderly, died when a tour bus caught fire in Germany last night.

Stefan Wittke, a police spokesman, said survivors told authorities the fire broke out in the on-board toilet as the bus drove down the A2 autobahn near Hanover, and quickly engulfed the vehicle after the door was opened and flames shot out.

The initial theory was that the blaze was started by someone smoking illegally in the toilet. But local fire chief Bernd Keitel said he suspected a spark in the bus's undercarriage may have set light to gases from the bathroom area.

A fire department official, Claus Roehrbein, said: "Passengers who were sitting close to the exit could get away, but the others had no chance."

Thirteen people were injured, three of them with serious burns.

The bus, owned by Hanover-based company Mommeyer, was said to have had between 33 and 39 people on board.

It had been chartered by a tour group to go from Hanover on a day trip to a farm, according to Uwe Prehn, the husband of the company's owner, and was on its way back to Hanover when the fire broke out at 8.45pm local time.

All the passengers were local people, Wittke said.

Early today firefighters combed the scorched wreckage of the bus, trying to put out the fire.

It had pulled off into an emergency lane before it was engulfed in flames and its back window had been blown out.

According to Reuters, Nadia Possberg, who had been driving past, told local television: "I just saw smoke and then I got closer and closer and realized that a coach was on fire."

Germany's transport minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, said he was "deeply shocked" by the accident and called for a careful investigation into the cause of the fire and whether safety regulations were followed.