VERONA, Italy-The Hungarian students had just finished a week of skiing in France when their bus swerved right, then left, then hit a highway barrier and burst into flames. Sixteen people were killed and over two dozen injured in a tragedy that sparked a national day of mourning in Hungary.
The impact of the crash just before midnight Friday on the northern Italian highway was so violent that the overpass support column actually entered several rows into the bus, officials said Saturday. The ensuing fireball burned some of the 16 dead beyond recognition and torched the bus, leaving just a skeleton of twisted steel.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash near Verona, and the cause wasn't known, said a tearful police commander, Girolamo Lacquaniti. Of the 39 survivors, 26 were injured, some seriously, he said. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters in Budapest that one passenger was in an induced coma.
"The fire was so huge it took up practically half of the three-lane highway," said Lanfranco Fossa, a businessman who stopped to offer help when he realized some injured youths had escaped the flames.
"These poor creatures, almost all of them were in short-sleeves, some without shoes," he said. "I gave them what I had: a shirt, a blanket. And others stopped to give them things as well."
Fossa said he also offered the kids his cellphone so they could call home to Budapest. He stayed over an hour to help translate for rescue crews, helping them find the most severely injured and understand what had happened. The students all spoke excellent English-but the rescuers didn't.
Fossa wasn't the only hero. One teacher on the bus managed to save some of the kids, suffering serious burns to his back as he did so, said Judit Timaffy of Hungary's consulate, who was at the scene.
And one student had the smarts to smash open a bus window with the emergency hammer.
"The kids told me that the fire started and they escaped from the fire, breaking the windows of the bus," she said. "Some of them managed to escape, but many were left inside."
In Budapest, the government declared a day of national mourning for Monday, with flags to be flown at half-staff and schools around the country holding commemorations.
A black flag flew Saturday above the entrance to the Szinyei Merse Pal high school in Budapest. A few hundred students and parents gathered for a vigil outside the school, some of them weeping, lighting small candles and laying flowers in memory of the victims.