Three killed in bus accident as snow hits Germany

9 February 2006

COPPENBRUEGGE, GERMANY – A bus carrying children and commuters to the German city of Hamelin collided early Thursday with a truck on an icy road, leaving three teenaged schoolchildren dead and 11 injured.

The driver of the truck, carrying steel, apparently lost control of his vehicle on an icy curve. The truck jack-knifed and side-swiped the bus, slitting most of one side of it open. The dead were two girls aged 14 and 17 and a schoolboy aged 18.

Police corrected a report that it had been a school bus, saying it was a municipal bus where many passengers were of school age. Snow was falling heavily in the small suburban town of Coppenbruegge in Lower Saxony state at the time, they said.

Thursday’s snow in Europe also caused at least four roof collapses in the south of Germany and in Austria, with one person slightly injured.

A warehouse in the town of Deggendorf caved in after days of heavy snowfall. A man who had been driving a fork-lift truck in the hall was hurt. Total damage was estimated at over 1 million euros (1.2 million dollars), said German police.

A refrigeration warehouse collapsed in the same town in Bavaria state earlier in the day without causing any injuries, police said.

A storage building collapsed in another Bavarian village, Schoensee, late Wednesday. Nobody was injured when the structure, measuring 35 metres by 15 metres, caved in under tons of snow, police said.

Snow has been falling all week in south-eastern Bavaria and roofs across the region are being cleared after a supermarket roof collapsed on Tuesday. Nobody was injured in that accident.

Across the border at Gmuend in Austria, part of a small factory collapsed.

DPA

Subject: German news