Hungary mourns 16 killed in bus crash

Hungary mourned on Monday the 16 people who died last Friday night when a bus bringing high school students home from a skiing trip in France crashed into a motorway pylon near Verona, Italy, and burst into flame.

Of the 40 survivors, 26 were injured, six seriously. Two of the six are in life-threatening condition.

The flag in front of parliament was lowered to half-mast in the presence of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, President Janos Ader, Speaker of Parliament Laszlo Kover, and other political officials from both the government and opposition. Many students from the Szinyei-Merse Pal high school, which held the crash victims, were also present.

Black flags were hung from many public buildings and Budapest's public transport vehicles carried black ribbons of mourning.

Mournings were also observed in schools throughout the country.

Four of the seriously injured victims were transferred to Budapest by ambulance or air-ambulance on Sunday and Monday, and are being treated at the Armed Forces Hospital.

Hospital director Robert Tamas said that all the four have burn injuries but two of them, one man and one woman, believed to be in their 50s, suffered extensive third degree burns.

The two injured remaining in Verona could not even be identified, as their burns are so serious. They cannot be moved as neither has been stabilized.

Italian authorities have collected DNA samples from the two as well as from the 16 bodies, all burned beyond recognition, and hope to be able to identify all of them by the end of the week. Endit