AT LEAST 13 Polish tourists were killed and 34 injured, 16 seriously, when the coach in which they were travelling crashed near Berlin yesterday.
The crash occurred when the 37-year-old driver of a Mercedes lost control of her car and rammed the coach carrying 47 passengers, mostly forestry workers from Zlocieniec in western Poland returning from a holiday in Spain.
The coach reportedly skidded and collided with the pillar of a motorway bridge near Berlin’s Schönefeld airport.
The driver of the car and a passenger are among those in a critical condition.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk travelled to the accident scene yesterday evening after German chancellor Angela Merkel called him to express her condolences.
Visibly shaken, Mr Tusk thanked German rescuers. All I can say is many thanks for your efforts, your help, he toldreporters in German at a Berlin hospital.
The first politician on the scene was Brandenburg’s state premier, Matthias Platzeck. “My thoughts are with those who lost their lives and their relatives,” said Mr Platzeck. “It is a terrible sight here; this is one of the worst accident we’ve experienced in Brandenburg.”
Investigators said poor driving conditions, including fog and a slick road surface caused by heavy rain, were a likely factor in the incident. Nearly 300 police and rescue teams worked to rescue survivors from wreckage of the silver coach.
The most seriously injured were airlifted to hospital while those with mild injuries were treated at the scene. One psychologist told a Berlin radio station she found some survivors “wandering the motorway” when she arrived.
Many rescue workers were distraught by the sight of mangled bodies that awaited them inside the bus “It’s a sight one doesn’t forget,” said Marko Behrens, fire service chief and head of the 150-man rescue team.
Police declined to name victims until relatives had been informed. The crash-scene meant the A10 motorway, an important east-west artery leading to Frankfurt Oder and the Polish border, was blocked until the evening.
A Polish government aircraft was sent to bring the dead home, while two coaches were sent for those who escaped injury.
