SIXTEEN people were killed and more than two dozen injured when a bus carrying Hungarian students burst into flames on a highway in northern Italy.
The vehicle, was carrying students aged between 15 and 17, teachers and parents, crashed into a highway barrier and burst into flames.
Six adults were seriously injured and are being treated in hospital in Verona, two of whom are in a "life-threatening" condition.
There were no other vehicles involved in the crash near Verona and it is not yet known why the bus, which was on its way to Budapest, left the road.
The number of victims could rise to 18, "but certainly no more than that", the Hungarian consul in Italy Judit Timaffy said.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a news conference that the teenagers were from a Budapest secondary school, returning from their annual ski camp in France.
A spokesman for the minister said the school was the Szinyei Gimnazium and the school’s director, Gabor Toth, said the official passenger list included 54 people.
Toth said there were 36 students on board, some former students, three teachers and the family of one of the teachers.
A physical education teacher, who suffered severe burns, returned to the bus several times to save other passengers and all of the survivors were "well taken care of" with nobody suffering life-threatening conditions, said Timaffy.
All of the injured were in a Verona hospital and 12 other passengers, who were “well”, were staying in a hotel south of the city, the minister said.
Local highway police chief Girolamo Lacquaniti said the cause of the crash would be investigated: “We are not aware of other vehicles being involved, it seems to have gone off the road of its own accord.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban said, “With my prayers, I am with the families and friends shocked by the tragedy,” .
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni called Orban to express his condolences.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here