Italy: Car rams into crowd, killing German tourists
January 5, 2020
A car plowed into a group of 17 young tourists early Sunday near the popular ski resort town of Lutago in northern Italy, killing at least six people.
Italian police said the people killed were German holidaymakers. Eleven others were injured, four of them critically. The tourists, all aged between 20 and 25, were standing along the side of a road when the vehicle slammed into them at high speed.
A police spokesperson said the driver of the car, 27, failed a breath test for alcohol and has been arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.
"I cry with those who have lost their children, their brothers and sisters, their friends, in the night," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Twitter. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte expressed his "most sincere" condolences to the "families of the young German tourists", wishing those injured a swift recovery.
Crash not believed to be intentional
Authorities said they do not believe the crash was intentional and an investigation is underway.
"We are currently working on the assumption that most of the deceased come from North Rhine-Westphalia," the state's governor, Armin Laschet, said in a statement on Twitter.
"These young people wanted to spend a good time together and were torn out of their lives or seriously injured from one second to the next."
Mourners left candles and flowers at the scene of the crash late Sunday morning.
The incident happened on the final weekend of Christmas, which will be capped by Epiphany on Monday.
Lutago, or Luttach in German, is a small town in a largely German-speaking region near the Austrian border that is popular for skiing and other winter sports.
Last weekend, three Germans were killed in an avalanche in South Tyrol. Five people were under investigation for the deadly avalanche accident.
shs/cmk (dpa, rainews.it, Ansa)