Man dies on bus, passengers panic

JAKARTA (JP): The death of a 77-year-old man on an intercity bus Saturday sent other passengers into a panic, forcing the driver to stop at Cawang tollgate so those on board could get off.

The man, Sujono, a resident of Cililitan Besar in East Jakarta, was heading for the city on a Putra Rafflesia bus which plies the Bengkulu-Jakarta-Bandung route.

The bus driver, Zulkifli, said a member of the crew found Sujono dead when the bus was approaching the Cawang interchange in East Jakarta.

Zulkifli said Sujono, who was sitting in the front row, behind the driver's seat, appeared healthy when the bus departed from Bengkulu on Friday afternoon.

"When my codriver woke up everybody who wanted to get off at the Pulogadung Bus Terminal, before we continued our journey to Bandung, he noticed that the victim was no longer breathing."

The panic was sparked by a passenger who shouted: "Bau mayat (smelly dead body) ...Bau mayat!!!"

Upon realizing a person had died on the bus, the other passengers became frightened too, Zulkifli said.

He continued driving the bus along Jl. Prumpung, where he organized for another bus to transport the frightened passengers to the Pulogadung terminal.

After all the passengers had disembarked, Zulkifli and the three crew members drove the bus to East Jakarta Police precinct.

"We didn't touch anything, not even his bag to look for his identity. My codriver only covered the man's face with a sarong. We thought that it was better to hand it over to the police," he said.

Sujono's body was sent to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta for a postmortem examination. (emf)