Five die as car and coach collide

THREE CHILDREN and two adults were killed last night when their car burst into flames after a collision with a coach.

Almost all the coach passengers were taken to hospitals near the scene of the accident in Lincolnshire. None was seriously injured, according to police, although one was taken to hospital by air ambulance.

The five fatalities, believed to be a family, were travelling in a BMW, which was burned out. Police were unable to supply their names or say where they were from.

The crash happened shortly before 6pm on the A16, two miles south of Louth.

The coach was returning to the West Midlands from a day trip to Skegness. Around 37 casualties, described by police as "walking wounded" were taken to hospitals in Grimsby, Louth and Lincoln. The owner of the 44-passenger coach, David Price of Price International Travel in Halesowen near Birmingham, said he had been told the driver and all the passengers were "all right". Another coach was sent by the company to bring the victims home, he said.

Paramedics, three doctors and air ambulance medics treated casualties at the scene. Seven ambulances from Louth, Horncastle, Mablethorpe, Market Rasen and Grimsby and the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance - based at RAF Waddington - were called to the accident. A police spokesman said: "We do not know what caused the accident.

"We do not have many details because the car was completely burned out in the crash.

"The conditions were the same as anywhere - fine. There is nothing obvious to show what happened."