Two Britons killed in German crash

Two Britons were killed and four people seriously injured in a pile-up involving a German truck and two British coaches packed with children on a German highway early yesterday, local officials said.

The dead were the 69-year-old co-driver of one of the coaches and a 14-year-old boy travelling in the other, a local government spokesman said.

The coaches were full of children from Norwich in Norfolk and Framlingham in Suffolk, and were on their way from eastern England to Austria for a skiing holiday.

Twenty-four people were slightly injured in the accident, which took place near the town of Kerpen, close to the western city of Cologne, at around 3.20 a.m.

One coach was apparently struck by the truck after stopping to change a tyre at the side of the highway. The second coach hit the truck as it swung round, the spokesman added. He said police initially believed part of the first coach was sticking out into the road.