Police probe bus tragedy
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.