13 killed in bus accident in Germany

A bus carrying senior citizens collided with a truck in eastern Germany on Monday and plunged down an embankment, killing 13 people, authorities said.

Police spokesman Ralf Moritz said 31 other people were injured, many of them seriously, in the accident on the A14 highway between Halle and Magdeburg.

The bus, carrying 48 senior citizens from Hopsten, in northwestern Germany, went off the road at about 1:45 p.m. The bus landed on its roof at the bottom of a roadside embankment.

Moritz said the accident happened when a truck ran into the bus at the site of a previous accident, causing the bus driver to lose control of its steering. The vehicle was traveling slowly at the time.

Five rescue helicopters were called out, and some of the injured were taken to hospitals in Halle and Magdeburg.

The head of the town council in Hopsten, Johannes Kramer, said the bus was carrying a group of local farmers on an annual tour, and that they were headed for the region around the eastern city of Dresden.