GERMAN MOTOR SMASH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19452, 7 October 1926, Page 11

GERMAN MOTOR SMASH.

FALL ON TO RAILWAY LINE. DANCE PARTY CUT TO PIECES. Ah appalling fate recently overtook a merry party of young people returning from a dance in the first hour of the morning through hilly country to the north of the famously picturesque German town of Rotbenburg. Twelve of them, mostly girls, had crammed into a six-seater car, \and when it arrived at the top of a steep hill leading to the station ot Burgbernheri, for which it was bound, the chauffeur, noticing that the brake >was not wtrking,. invited his passengers to get out. Before they could do so, however, the car slipped away, ran over the edge of a railwAy cutting 100 ft. deep, and, turning a somersault as it fell, crashed on to the rails beneath. At that moment a locomotive came down tho liue in the darkness, dashed into tho overturned car, and swept its shattered wreckage nearly 200 yards before it could be stopped. It was then found that the lino was littered with tho remains of the dance party, nine of whom were already dead, the remaining three being gravely injured.