HENSIES (Belgium), Dec 20: Eleven passengers were killed when a bus carrying mainly young people from Germany to France hit a highway crash barrier in southern Belgium and burst into flames early on Saturday, judicial sources said.

The bus careered into the concrete barrier on a highway near the Belgian town of Hensies, close to the Franco-Belgian border post of Saint-Aybert, catching fire and burning out completely.

“People were screaming and trying to get out,” a witness told Belgian RTBF radio. “People were breaking and getting out of the windows,” another witness said. Officials said 11 bodies were recovered from the charred remains of the bus. Earlier on Saturday, the number of dead was put at 12, but one person supposed to have been on the bus later contacted authorities to say he had not boarded it.

Hamburg-based tour operator Rainbow Tours ruled out a technical fault as the cause of the accident. It said in a statement witnesses had reported seeing the bus driver lose control of the vehicle “in as yet unknown circumstances”.

The bus was carrying 49 passengers of mixed nationalities including Germans, Bosnians, Turks, Croats, Russians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Mongolians and one American, judicial and rescue officials said.

Russia’s NTV had reported eight Russians were among the dead, but a spokesman from the Russian Embassy in Brussels told Reuters none of the 11 killed were from his country.

—Reuters