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SOCCER: TWO KILLED IN JUVE COACH CRASH
18:35 - 21/10/2008
(ANSA) - Aosta, October 21 - Two people were killed Tuesday and at least 30 injured, some seriously, when a coach full of Juventus fans from Switzerland came off an Alpine road on its way to Tuesday night's Champions League clash with Real Madrid.
The victims are believed to be the coach's two drivers.
The accident happened shortly after the coach left the Great Saint Bernard Tunnel, crossing into Italy.
The coach, packed with Italian emigres', came off the road and overturned after hitting a building housing a pharmacy in the small Val d'Aosta village of Etroubles.
Break marks stretching for about 20m were found before the point where the coach left the carriageway.
"Right from the first bends we realised the driver was going down too fast and wasn't experienced at handling bends," a young fan from Neuchatel told ANSA.
"Some of the people on the coach told him to be more careful".
Residents of Etroubles, a small village in the Aosta region bordering on France and Switzerland, said they saw the coach speeding along the road which overlooks the village.
A 800m straight stretch leads to a couple of hairpin bends which have been the scene of several accidents over the years, police said.
Most of the crashes were caused by the failure of brakes on trucks and other heavy vehicles which had overheated after going round some 20 bends before reaching Etroubles.
Several trucks have piled into houses in the medieval 'borgo', leading the local council to build a reinforced concrete barrier at the danger spot.
But the coach just missed it.
The impact threw some fans through the coach's windows, a resident told ANSA.
"I came out of my house and saw four or five young people lying in pools of blood. They'd been thrown out of the coach's windows," she said.
Other fans are still being cut from the wreckage.
The casualties are being taken to a hospital in the regional capital, Aosta, which is just 16km away. (ANSA).
