Police probe bus tragedy
The Jakarta Post, Situbondo/Surabaya
East Java Police were engaged in an all-out search on Thursday for the driver of a trailer truck that crushed a bus on the busy highway near Situbondo regency, killing at least 54 people.
The police arrested the driver's assistant, named only by his initials as BD, after he fled quickly after the inferno, and were intensively grilling him.
"BD is being detained by the East Java Police station. We are now tracking down KJ (the truck's driver) to get his account of the crash," East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Heru Susanto said in Situbondo.
The Situbondo police were questioning the driver of the ill- fated bus AO Transport, Armando, and his assistant Budiarto, who survived.
Budiarto is hospitalized at the Situbondo General Hospital with serious burn injuries.
However, Armando was slightly wounded as he was thrown out of the bus when it was crushed between the large truck in front and a minivan behind.
He told police investigators that flames and thick smoke quickly engulfed the bus, causing panic among the victims, 49 of them schoolgirls, from the Yapemda I high school in Sleman regency, Yogyakarta.
"I told the children at the time to open the back door but it turned out they could not. Despite my pain from being thrown in the collision, I broke some windows but the fire spread too fast," Armando was quoted by Antara as saying.
Most of the bodies were charred after the bus caught fire. Police said that in terms of the number of victims, the inferno was the worst traffic accident in the country this year.
The 54 dead were among around 130 children from the school, who were returning from a three-day field trip on the resort island of Bali, when one of three buses rammed into the container truck. The back of the bus was then rammed from behind by a minivan.
Heru said the crash occurred after the truck lost power while climbing a downhill stretch of the road, rolling back and smashing into the bus, which was also rammed from behind by the minivan loaded with fruit.
The truck's fuel tank then burst into flames, setting all three vehicles on fire, he added.
However, it was not immediately known what exactly caused the crash.
"We cannot determine the cause of the accident at this stage, but the evidence seems to indicate from the scene that the truck was in the wrong lane," Heru said as quoted by SCTV.
Doctors and paramedics, including reinforcements from the East Java capital of Surabaya, were registering details of the dead before identification by relatives later on Thursday.
They said many victims were so badly burned identification may require dental records or DNA testing.
The charred corpses, laid on plastic sheets on the floor of the hospital, were then put in body bags and tagged.
The last bodies arrived at the Situbondo hospital about seven hours after the tragedy at 7:30 p.m. The three vehicles were reportedly still ablaze some three hours after the accident.
Police officers, other officials and volunteers worked under spotlights through the night to extract dozens of burned bodies, carrying them to ambulances on stretchers.
The inferno blocked most of the notoriously chaotic highway that links Surabaya to Banyuwangi, where ferries arrive and depart to Bali.
Traffic jams stretched up to 14 kilometers on the highway as police rerouted the traffic to let ambulances get to the scene.
Indonesia has a poor record for traffic accidents, especially on the most densely populated island of Java. Its roads see an average 29 deaths a day with an annual toll of 10,585. according to police statistics.