BERLIN (AFP) - - Twenty people were killed late Tuesday after a bus believed to be carrying pensioners burst into flames on a German motorway in the country's worst such accident in 16 years, police said.

Only around 10 of the around 30 passengers on the coach were able to escape after the blaze broke out near the northern city of Hanover, a spokesman for the German motorway police said.

A spokeswoman for Hanover police said that 12 people had been injured and that the fire had started in the interior of the coach.

Police said that preliminary indications were that it was not a traffic accident, but it was unclear whether a technical fault or if actions by a passenger were to blame.

Other media reports said that the driver was forced to pull the coach over into the hard shoulder between two motorway junctions after the fire started at around 8:45 pm (1945 GMT).

The bus started its journey in the industrial Ruhr Valley area in western Germany and was heading in the direction of the capital Berlin in the northeast.

"I am deeply shaken by the dreadful fate of the victims of the fire," Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said. "My sympathies go out to their loved ones."

He added that there had to be a "close" examination into what caused the accident.

If initial reports were correct that only a few passengers were able to escape the bus it would have to be investigated whether safety guidelines were adhered to and whether regulations should be strengthened, he said.

It was Germany's worst coach accident for 16 years. In 1992, 21 people were killed and 35 injured in a crash in the Black Forest region of southwestern Germany.

In June 2007, 13 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a coach at full speed, sending it hurtling down an embankment before it landed on its roof off a motorway outside the central city of Halle.

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