BERLIN, Jan 23 — Two children were killed and 20 more injured when a school bus slipped off an icy road into a ditch in central Germany, local authorities said today.

The driver of the bus was also injured, the district office of Wartburg reported. 

Citing local police, Bild daily said the bus was carrying more than 20 children to their elementary school when the accident happened near the town of Berka in the state of Thuringia.

According to Bild, driving conditions were made worse by "thick fog”.

In a statement on Twitter, Thuringian state president Bodo Ramelow said he was "dismayed” by the news.

Separately today, nine children were injured in a similar incident near the Bavarian-Austrian border.

A police spokesman in Rosenheim said that a school bus had crashed into a tree in nearby Traunstein, for still unknown reasons.

He added that the driver had been seriously injured, while the children had sustained light to medium injuries. — AFP