World News 12-08-2004 Minibus Blamed For Coach Crash who: Crash survivor Peter Davies what: Saved lives of passengers in mountain bus plunge with quick thinking, says dad where: Austria when: Tuesday snippet: "An overtaking minibus caused Tuesday`s coach crash in Austria in which five Britons were killed," reports the BBC. "Police believe an oncoming car forced the minibus to swerve into the bus and then the car." "As relatives of the injured and dead began to arrive in the country, it emerged that three women and two men had died and four children were among those still being treated in hospital," says The Independent. All of the dead were British tourists on an excursion with the holiday company Inghams near to the city of Salzburg. "The scorched tyre marks on the mountain road were all there was left to see yesterday afternoon," says The Guardian. "The coach had been taken away for forensic examination, but at the end of the black rubber lines a jagged tear in the grass verge marked the point where the vehicle, with 49 people on board, had toppled over and over, and down the side of the mountain." The Sun has managed to find a hero for the piece - 27 year-old survivor Peter Davies, who remembered the fire-fighting training he received at the aluminium firm he works for and scrambled through the broken glass and spilt diesel to the front of the coach where he turned off the ignition, preventing an explosion. "The coach could have blown up, killing everyone," says his proud dad. "That may have only been seconds or minutes away. One thing`s for sure, Pete is a hero. We are proud of him." Elsewhere, the paper reports that six people died when a double-decker bus plunged over a bridge in Peru en route to the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu. [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!