Three-car pileup claims 15 lives
Nana Rukmana and Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Indramayu/Bogor
A multiple accident involving three vehicles on the north coast road in Pilangsari village on the outskirts of the West Java town of Indramayu killed nine people, four of them instantly, on Tuesday evening.
Earlier in the day, six people died instantly after a funeral car collided with three Kijang vans on Jagorawi toll road near Cibinong, also in West Java.
Indramayu Police chief Sr. Comr. Eko Hadi Sutedjo said on Wednesday that the accident occurred after one of the tires on a speeding Kijang van heading for Jakarta blew out.
The car's driver, Azis Cahyo Perdana, lost control of the vehicle, which then mounted the sidewalk on the left of the highway. The van came to a halt only after it had hit a motorcycle and a truck that were heading in the same direction.
The two people on the motorcycle, Mohammad Gunawan, 48, and his son Mochammad Dani, 25, and two of the truck passengers, Rokayah, 67, and Kuswati, died instantly.
Doctors said that four of the van's passengers, identified as Sunarti, 40, Sri Hayati, 38, and her children Arin, 16, and Utami Dewi, 17, and the truck driver, Junjun Adianto, 28, died in the local general hospital due to blood losses resulting from their severe injuries.
Azis and another 14 people who were injured in the accident are now being treated at the general hospital and the Zam-zam private hospital.
Traffic section chief Adj. Comr. Suhadi blamed the accident on Azis, who had been driving at high speed. Suhadi also called on people to comply with traffic warning signs and signals.
The victims in the toll road accident were identified as Slamet, 47, a staff member of the City Planning Agency who was in one of the Kijang vans, Endang, 40, a resident of Tangerang, Banten; Rudi, 30, of Grogol; Romli, 30, of Tangerang; Barjo, 39, driver of the funeral car which is owned by the Jabar Agung Foundation; and Mattasih, 42, a resident of Pandeglang, Banten. All the bodies were taken to the Bogor PMI hospital.
One of the survivors, Jumli, said during the journey Barjo drove the funeral car at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour.
"I felt jolts in the car a few hundred meters before the accident site. Suddenly, the car front tire on the right burst and the car veered toward the right lane of the toll road," Jumli said.