CESKE BUDEJOVICE -- Nineteen people were killed and 34 injured in a tour bus crash in the southern Czech Republic, officials said Sunday.

The accident occurred Saturday evening on a motorway near the village of Nazidla, about 15km north of the Czech-Austrian border, DPA reported.

Police were questioning the injured driver after the bus ran off the road, crashed through a barrier and rolled down a steep embankment.

The double-decker bus, operated by the LSK autobus company of Sokol, was carrying Czech travelers home from a skiing trip in the Austrian Alps, Czech radio reported.

Seventeen of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, and two others died of their injuries in hospital.

Ambulances from more than six communities transported the injured to hospitals in Ceske Budejovice, Cesky Krumlov and Prachatice. More than two dozen were reported in serious condition. "The bus literally ripped apart," a firefighter at the scene told the Novinky News Agency. "We've never handled a similar horror."