German bus crashes on Swiss highway, 13 injured

A German bus crashed into a metal post Sunday on a highway in southern Switzerland, leaving 13 people injured, three of them seriously, Swiss police said.

The bus was heading south with 25 people on board when the accident happened on the A2 highway at Sigirino, near Lugano — a major route across the Alps from northern Europe to Italy. Ticino canton (state) police revised downward their initial estimate that about 40 people were on the bus.

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the bus to plow into the post, wrecking the front of the vehicle.

The bus from the German city of Cologne had set off on Saturday evening and was headed for Assisi in Italy, Johannes Huebner of bus travel group RDA, who was coordinating emergency plans for the company involved, told the German news agency dpa.