Seventeen are presumed dead after a tour bus crashed and burst into flames Monday, July 3, at 7 a.m. local time (1 a.m. EST) on a highway in Southern Germany.
The incident to place outside the city of Münchberg in Bavaria.
The tour bus was incinerated shortly after colliding with a semi-truck in slow-moving traffic on the A9 highway, with the semi-truck catching fire shortly after. The semi driver escaped the vehicle safely.
Police are not sure what caused the crash, or why the bus was engulfed in flames so quickly, but they speculate that it was caused by a “traffic jam.”
Out of the 46 passengers and 2 drivers on the bus, a police spokesman told broadcaster n-tv that 17 people were unaccounted for and likely died in the crash. The other 31 people have been transported to a hospital for emergency care, some in critical condition.
