16 Killed in Fiery Italy School Bus Crash

A bus carrying Hungarian school students home from a skiing trip to France slammed into a highway barrier in northern Italy Friday night and caught fire, killing at least 16 people, police say. Out of 39 survivors, 26 were injured, some seriously, the AP reports. No other vehicles were involved in the crash, and it wasn't clear why the bus hit the overpass support column on the highway near Verona just before midnight, a police spokesman says. Reuters reports that police say the bus was carrying teenage students, mostly boys, along with teachers and parents.

RAI state radio said a Slovenian truck driver who was traveling behind the bus had noticed a problem with one of the bus wheels and tried to alert the driver, but the driver didn't react quickly enough. Some of the students were thrown clear when the bus crashed, while others were trapped in the burning vehicle. A Hungarian diplomat says a sports teacher saved some of the students by returning to the flames to drag them out, suffering burn injuries in the process, the BBC reports. (More bus crash stories.)