A coach with 52 Dutch people on board went up in flames early on Wednesday morning on the way to a winter sports area in Austria. A 38-year-old woman from Brabant was also on board. Her parents were called awake early this morning, after which she told them that she had escaped death.
The bus with employees of the energy company Enexis had left Den Bosch that morning for a four-day winter sports trip. On the ring road near Munich (A99), smoke suddenly appeared from the back of the coach.
“We’re outside, the bus is on fire.”
The driver immediately stopped on the hard shoulder. The woman and her colleagues had to quickly leave the bus and were just outside when the vehicle caught fire.
“We were sleeping and we were very shocked when we suddenly heard the telephone ring just after six,” says the father. “It was our daughter who said, ‘We’re standing here on the side of the road, the bus is on fire.’ She was standing outside in her shirt at temperatures around freezing. Fortunately, she was otherwise unharmed.”
She called with a colleague’s mobile phone, because her mobile phone and her iPad were also burned on the bus. Some of the suitcases were lost in the fire, other luggage suffered significant water damage due to firefighting activities. Some suitcases, including the woman’s, were spared.
The bus was completely destroyed by the fire, with only blackened remains left. The A99 had to be partially closed.
The occupants were temporarily housed in a fire station. They then traveled on to Gerlos in Austria by another bus. “Hopefully they can still enjoy the snow a bit,” says her father. “But the fear will undoubtedly still be there, although she is not really afraid.”
