Three-car pileup claims 15 lives
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.