Train rams into truck loaded with gas cylinders, stranding passengers

Train rams into truck loaded with gas cylinders, stranding passengers

Agus Maryono and Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Purwokerto, Indramayu

A train rammed the back of a truck loaded with gas cylinders
at a railway crossing in the Central Java town of Purwokerto on
Thursday.

No one was injured in the accident and none of the liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders exploded.

Some 600 passengers on the Fajar Utama train, which serves the
Jakarta-Yogyakarta route, had to wait for five hours before they
could continue their journey.

The accident damaged both the truck and the locomotive, which
had to be replaced.

Spokesman for train operator PT KAI in Purwokerto, Supriyadi
blamed the accident on the truck driver, Saridi, who is now in
police custody.

Supriyadi said the driver ignored the railway crossing
barrier, which was being lowered at the time, even though the
train was already close.

He added that KAI would sue PT Asri Bumi Purbalingga, the LPG
supplier that owned the truck.

Separately, two were killed in Indramayu regency when a
speeding oil tanker hit a motorcycle as the tanker was trying to
avoid motorcycle on Java's accident-prone north coast route.

The driver of the motorcycle, Kadis bin Samsi (40), and
passenger Ibrahim (40), died instantly.

Heading to Jakarta from Cirebon, the truck veered suddenly to
the right when its driver, Warsap, saw a motorcycle trying to
overtake him on the left.

"But at the same time and from the opposite direction, there
was a Honda Astrea Supra motorcycle with two people riding it
coming along," said Indramayu traffic police chief Adj. Comr.
Suhadi.

Police have detained the 50-year-old truck driver.

Accidents are a regular feature of the north coast route,
which connects industrial centers in West Java with markets in
Central and East Java.