Vienna - More than 35,000 mail items will never reach their Austrian destinations after they were destroyed in a burning postal lorry on Thursday, Austria's postal service confirmed.

The driver was transporting mail on Thursday morning near the village of Pruggern in the Styria province, when he noticed that his vehicle was on fire.

The man managed to escape the flames unhurt, but more than 50 firefighters were unable to prevent the lorry and 30,000 letters, 250 packages and 5,000 periodicals from burning up.

"We don't know yet why the lorry burned," said post spokesman Michael Homola. But he said the damage could have been even worse, as the vehicle's loading space was not completely full at the time of the fire. (dpa)