Holiday Tragedy

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30178, 9 July 1963, Page 13

Holiday Tragedy

(W .Z .P. A .-Reuter—Copy ng ht)

LEONBERG (West Germany), July 8.

Shocked survivors from a holiday bus crash which killed six Britons and injured 30 others spent a sleepless night in Leonberg as officials worked to identify the victims.

The bus swerved off the road near Stuttgart and plunged 45ft on to a railway line yesterday after six cars had piled up on the autobahn ahead of it. The bus was on its way to the Austrian resort of Kitzbuehl with 36 British tourists from London and Manchester. Three Germans died in the multiple car collision, two

more were seriously hurt, and three slightly injured. The British Consul-General, Mr R. Heppel, said he had been unable to identify three of the dead at the hospital— a young woman, a young man, and an elderly woman. He said: “I have to look for signet rings and other signs like that.” He added: “This is an immense task. The trouble is they were all strangers to one another apart from the married couples.

“Even some of them still do not know if their husbands or wives are dead because some are seriously injured, especially the women.” Mr Heppel said it would be several hours before identification had been sorted out. The injured are being treated in several hospitals in Leonberg, near Stuttgart. The bus driver, Mr Roger Jokos, said he was not clear what happened. The bus was hired in Ostend from a London company.

A truck driver who saw the , accident said the bus hurtled over the bridge Then “it turned turtle in mid-air, crashing on its roof, and burst open like a ripe orange with the impact. “Some of the passengers spilled out as U fell and lay pinned under the wreckage,’ he said

Family Dies

(NZ Press Assn.—Copyright) MELBOURNE, July 8. Post-mortem examinations on the wife and three children of a dead Melbourne taxi-driver today showed they had all died of asphyxiation. They were found dead in their home at Elwood yesterday. The taxi-driver, John James O'Grady, was found dead in the water off Elwood beach later in the day. A post-mortem examination showed he had d : ed by drowning.