Five die in Austria tunnel blaze

Emergency services outside the Gleinalm tunnel

VIENNA, Austria -- Five people were killed and four injured in a blaze in a motorway tunnel in the Austrian Alps after a crash between two cars.

Fire broke out in the middle of the 8 kilometre (5 mile) Gleinalm tunnel, some 25 km (15 miles) north of Graz, on the A9 motorway between Graz and Salzburg, Reuters reported.

Three adults and two children travelling in one car died, a police spokesman said. Four people in a second vehicle suffered injuries, some of them serious.

There was no immediate word on the identities and nationalities of the victims.

The combined death toll from a spate of fire disasters in Austrian tunnels over the past two years is now more than 165.

Last November, 155 people were killed after a fire broke out in a ski train climbing through a steep tunnel at the Kaprun resort.

In May 1999, 12 people were killed and 50 injured in the last previous major Austrian motorway tunnel blaze, after a truck ploughed into a column of vehicles in the Tauern tunnel.