VIENNA Eighteen people, many of them teenagers, were killed when a bus carrying Hungarians on their first ski trip crashed in southern Austria on Sunday, the Austrian news agency APA reported. It quoted rescue workers as saying about 32 people were injured when the vehicle skidded off the road between Deutschlandsberg and Trahuetten, southeast of Graz. The cause of the accident was not known but the road was said to have been free of snow and ice at the time.

APA said the Party of Hungarian Schoolchildren, aged between 15 and 18, had just begun a week's skiing holiday, accompanied by teachers and parents. Meanwhile, a local official said on Monday that brake failure and excessive speed may have been the cause of the crash. Walter Hingl, a law officer in the Deutschlandsberg district said the vehicle had been travelling too fast when it left the road and crashed down an embankment.

(Reuter)