19 Poles killed in bus crash

The bus flipped over and landed in a ditch, killing 19 people and injuring 32 others

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- A tourist bus carrying more than four dozen Polish pilgrims crashed early Monday near Lake Balaton in western Hungary, killing 19 people.

Among the dead were two children, eight women and nine men, including the driver, authorities said. The crash injured 32 people, including three children.

One woman was trapped under the wreckage for seven hours before being freed and taken to hospital, a firefighter told Reuters news agency.

"This is tragic news," Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller told national radio.

The bus, from Stoczek in eastern Poland, was headed to a shrine to the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in southeast Bosnia. Many of the passengers were from Stoczek, near Lublin.

The bus was carrying 49 pilgrims, including a priest, and two drivers.

"This was not the first such pilgrimage organised by Father Stefan (believed to be among the injured)," Father Wlodzimierz Machulak, head of the Stoczek monastery, told Reuters. "The transport was provided by a private firm."

Police speculate the bus driver may have fallen asleep because there were no signs of braking at the site of the accident.

The bus flipped over at a roundabout shortly after 1:15 a.m. between the towns of Balaton Keresztur and Balaton Szentgyorgy, Hungarian National Police spokesman Tamas Urban told CNN.

The roundabout was recently built at the scene of frequent accidents as a safety measure, Reuters said.

A local police spokesman said the coach went into the roundabout's centre, flipped over and left the road before landing upside down in a ditch.

Damage was so severe that the bus had to be cut into pieces to remove the casualties, Urban said.

Nearby hospitals at Marcali and Keszthely were receiving the injured

The crash occurred on the main highway between Budapest and Zagreb, Croatia. The route is frequently used by holidaymakers from Poland heading to Greek and Turkish resorts.

Lake Balaton, around 200 km (130 miles) southwest of Budapest, is a popular tourist destination in Eastern Europe.