Five Germans Killed in Bus Crash in Siberia

Eleven people, including five Germans, died in a collision between a bus and a truck on a highway in western Siberia, while another German was killed in a separate bus crash near Saint Petersburg Thursday, officials said. In the Siberian incident, a bus carrying 39 people, including 28 Germans, crashed into a Volvo truck that moved into its path in thick fog on the road between the cities of Chelyabinsk and Kurgan, an official with the emergency situations ministry told ITAR-TASS news agency. The Germans were visiting relatives among Siberia's ethnic German population, another official from the same ministry told AFP. "We have sent a representative of our consulate in Yekaterinburg to the scene to establish the identity of the victims," a German Embassy official said, adding that he could not confirm Russian news reports that three of the dead Germans were children. "The number of dead Germans could change after checks," the embassy official told AFP. In addition to the dead, 23 people were injured, the emergencies ministry said. In the second incident, a bus bringing German tourists from the city of Düsseldorf crashed into a Russian Kamaz truck near Saint Petersburg killing one German woman and injuring 21 other Germans, who are all being treated in hospital, Andrei Alabiyev, spokesman for the Saint Petersburg branch of the emergency situations ministry, said. "In all the bus was carrying 25 tourists -- pensioners," Alabiyev said. "Apart from the dead person, the majority were injured, but their lives are not in danger."