A car plowed into a group of 17 young tourists overnight near a popular ski resort town in northern Italy on Sunday, killing at least six people, DW reports.
Italian police said they believed those killed were German holidaymakers belonging to a tour group in the autonomous province of South Tyrol, which is a largely German-speaking region. Several others were injured, four of them critically.
The tourists, all aged between 20 and 25, were standing along the side of a road when the vehicle struck.
A police spokesperson said the driver of the car, 27, failed a breath test for alcohol and has been arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter.
Authorities said they do not believe the crash was intentional and an investigation is underway.
"We are currently working on the assumption that most of the deceased come from North Rhine-Westphalia," the state's governor, Armin Laschet, said in a statement.
"These young people wanted to spend a good time together and were torn out of their lives or seriously injured from one second to the next."
Mourners left candles and flowers at the scene of the crash late Sunday morning.
