How did they die? Dad finds bodies of six teens

A father worried about his children has discovered the bodies of six teenagers, including his own, in a shed in the German town of Arnstein in Bavaria.

The group of men and women were between the ages of 18 and 19 and had met up the previous evening apparently for a party in the shed on the remote plot of land.

As he hadn't heard from his children by morning, the father went to the site - which belongs to the family - to check if everything was all right.

He found the bodies of his children and their friends in the hut, police said, and called emergency services.

The fire brigade and a physician were rushed to the site, but the teenagers were already dead.

Police said the cause of death was unclear, but there was no evidence of a violent crime.

In the building there was a wood-fired heater that had previously been lit, leaving open the possibility that carbon monoxide poisoning could have killed the youths.

"There are many other possibilities, and this is clear speculation," said the authorities in the Lower Franconia district, east of Frankfurt.

An autopsy to confirm the cause of death could take several days.

- AAP, DPA