Devastated Yogyakarta tries to cope with bus inferno

Devastated Yogyakarta tries to cope with bus inferno

The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta/Surabaya

Thursday was officially declared a day of mourning in Yogykarta
for the victims of the grisly bus crash in which at least 54
people from Sleman regency in Yogyakarta were burned to death.

Hundreds of sobbing parents, relatives and local residents
gathered at the Yapemda I senior high school in Sleman to check
the bus's passenger list after hearing of the tragic accident.

The 54 victims, mostly schoolgirls, were killed in a three-
vehicle collision in the country's worst road traffic accident
this year.

Forty-nine girls died inside their burning bus, which was
crushed between a trailer truck and a minivan on Wednesday
evening in Situbondo regency, East Java.

Family members of the victims were taken on three buses to
Situbondo on Thursday to help identify the dead.

Sleman Regent Ibnu Subiyanto said his administration would
cover all repatriation and burial costs. All of the dead were
students of Yapemda school.

A mass funeral was being prepared for the victims, but parents
would be allowed to bury their own children if they wanted to, he
added.

Subiyanto said his office would also build a monument over the
mass grave.

Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, who was sworn in
for a second term on Thursday, said he would directly give
donations to the victims.

The crash separated twin sisters Riyani and Riyanti forever as
one of them was among the dead, while her sister was aboard a
separate bus. Both of them had decided to go on the Yapemda study
tour to Bali.

"Riyani and Riyanti decided to go on the trip. But before they
departed, I suggested that they not take the same bus," the
twins' mother, Sariyem, told Antara in Sleman.

Muhroji, a Yapemda teacher who was aboard a separate bus at
the time of the accident, said he received a phone call at 8 p.m.
from the bus operator, AO Transport, on Wednesday night informing
him that the bus traveling behind his bus had been involved in an
accident with a truck.

"I later tried to contact the bus crew and teachers but there
was no response from their cell phones," he recalled.

He then got off his bus, which was trapped in a traffic jam,
and took a motorcycle taxi to find the AO Transport bus.

"When I arrived at the scene at around 8:30 p.m., the bus was
already incinerated and I saw dozens of dead students piled up at
the back. All the windows of the bus were shattered," Muhroji
added.

State-owned insurance firm PT Jasa Raharja said it had
allocated Rp 545 million (US$64,117) to compensate the injured
victims and the families of the dead.

"The bereaved families will receive Rp 10 million each, while
each of the injured will get Rp 5 million," said M. Anhari, the
head of the company's Surabaya, East Java, office.

He said the payments would be made by the Jasa Raharja office
in Yogyakarta.