Three students die, 15 injured after falling from train
Three students die, 15 injured after falling from train
Yuli Tri Suwarni and Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Bandung/Cirebon
Three students were killed and 15 others injured after they fell
from an express train in Cicendo, Bandung, West Java province, on
Monday.
The victims, all students from a senior high school in
Tangerang, Banten province, were hanging out of the doors of the
Serayu express when they fell.
The dead students were identified as Adhari, 19, Iwan, 19 and
Yoga Budiman, 18. They were from Cicayur village in Pagedangan
subdistrict, Tangerang.
Three of the injured victims -- Khaerudin, 18, Iwan, 18 and
Asiri, 19 -- were described as being in a serious condition and
are being treated at the Hasan Sadikin hospital. The 12 other
students suffered slight injuries.
"The dead and seriously injured students sustained wounds to
their heads and other parts of their bodies after they fell out
of the train," Bandung Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Edi Mulyono
was quoted by Antara as saying.
He said the accident occurred at 1:15 a.m. as millions of
travelers were returning to Jakarta, Bandung and other big cities
and towns across Indonesia after celebrating Idul Fitri.
Police and survivors said the 18 students fell from the train,
which was traveling from Kroya in Central Java to Jakarta via
Bandung, after the bags belonging to three of them got caught on
barbed wire near Bandung railway station.
The students had boarded the train at the Bandung station
without tickets.
Adhari and Iwan were killed instantly at the scene, while
their friend, Yoga, died on the way to the hospital.
"It's actually the fault of the students as they did not buy
tickets. They forced their way on to the train even though it was
packed," said Akhmad Sujadi, a spokesman for PT Kereta Api
Indonesia's Operations Region II, which covers the Bandung area.
The bodies of the three students were taken home on Monday
afternoon aboard ambulances from the Hasan Sadikin hospital.
The 18 students were returning home from a three-day climbing
trip to Mount Papandayang in Garut regency, West Java. They
arrived in Bandung on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Java's north coast railroad returned to normal on
Monday after being hit by three train accidents over three
consecutive days up to Sunday.
The last accident occurred at around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday when
a Kertajaya economy-class train derailed at Cabawan, Margadana
subdistrict, some five kilometers from Tegal railway station in
Central Java.
There were no reports of casualties but the derailment cut the
line linking Jakarta and East Java for seven hours. The train,
made up of 12 cars, was carrying around 1,000 passengers.
However, by around 4 a.m. on Monday traffic on the accident-
prone line was back to normal.
The Kertajaya, which was traveling from Jakarta to Surabaya,
East Java, jumped the tracks apparently because its brakes
failed, railway officials said.
Earlier on Friday, another economy-class train, the Gaya Baru
Malam, derailed at around 4:45 a.m. on Cisanggarung bridge, which
links Central Java and West Java.
The accident, which took place at Bantarsari village in
Cileduk subdistrict, Cirebon regency, cut the Surakarta-
Yogyakarta-Purwokerto-Jakarta line for more than six hours.
In the third accident, two tank cars from a tanker train
carrying diesel overturned some 200 meters east of Tegal railway
station on Saturday evening.
This brought traffic on Java's north coast line to a halt for
more than five hours from around 5:17 p.m.
The train left Maos railway station in Cilacap regency,
Central Java, at around 1:30 p.m.
No casualties were reported in the Tegal accident.
Suhartono, a spokesman for PT Kereta Api Indonesia's
Operations Region III in Cirebon, blamed the three railway
accidents on the age of the rolling stock.
The rolling stock of two of the three trains was produced more
than 20 years ago, he said, while that of the Gaya Baru Malam
train was almost 40 years old.