LONDON, Aug 11 (AFP) - Five British tourists killed in a coach crash in Austria died after their tour bus was forced off the road by a vehicle overtaking on a sharp bend, the holiday firm running the trip said Wednesday.
More than 40 others, also mainly Britons, were injured on Tuesday afternoon after the bus careered off a road into a ditch before somersaulting, throwing some passengers out of windows.
According to London-based tour operator Inghams, the crash in Duerrnberg, near Salzburg in the west of Austria, happened when a smaller minibus attempted to overtake the coach on a sharp corner.
An oncoming car forced the minibus to swerve and it ploughed into the coach, sending it off the steep mountain road, Inghams spokeswoman Lynsey Devon said.
"The impact caused the coach to leave the road, roll over three times and fall some 60 metres (yards) into fields below resulting in the injuries to the passengers," she said.
Three of the injured were in a very serious condition, the head of Salzburg Emergency Services told BBC radio earlier Wednesday.
"Five people died and all five people are British. Three other people are in hospital in a very bad situation," Gerhard Huber said.
Four people died at the crash scene while a fifth was airlifted to a hospital in Salzburg but died in transit, Huber said earlier.
Inghams, set up by a Walter Ingham in the 1920s, who fell in love with Austria's mountain scenery after moving to the country with his parents as a young man, has flown relatives to the crash site.