AT LEAST 18 people, including five Italian tourists, were killed yesterday when two buses and a pick-up truck crashed in the Dominican Republic.

About 20 people were injured, said Lucas Evangelista Perez Jose, an official in the town of Higuey, near the popular La Romana resort area.

He said five Italians died from a group of 23 travelling in one of the buses. The tourist bus and a passenger bus collided head-on when one tried to pass a pick-up truck on a steep area with poor visibility, civil defence authorities said.

The doors of the buses were jammed shut in the crash, and dazed and wounded passengers had to wait for hours to be rescued.