At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a horrific bus accident on the main Indonesian Island of Java, said officials on Wednesday.
The accident occurred in the Cianjur district of West Java, near Ciloto village, said a police officer from the local police department that is investigating the accident. It appears that the bus smashed into a steep rock face while travelling at high speed. Although no official figures have been released yet, it is thought that over 50 passengers were on board the bus at the time.
A spokesperson for the West Java Police, Sr. Commander Martinus Sitompul, said that the police department could confirm that 17 people have been declared dead, with 23 others transported to Cimacan General Hospital by ambulance. Martinus said that there are no official records of how many people were on the bus at the time of the accident.
The accident occurred just after noon on Wednesday. “It is suspected that the driver lost control of the bus and it rammed into a cliff” said Martinus. Eye witness reports and preliminary results from the accident scene investigation corroborate this report.
According to the head of the Bogor traffic police. Adj. Commander Edwin Affandi, the road on which the accident occurred was closed to traffic some hours following the accident, to allow the victims to be evacuated from the scene and the wreckage of the bus cleared. Traffic coming from the country’s capital of Jakarta on the main stretch of highway pokies no download between Puncak and Bogor were diverted through Jonggol or Sukabumi.
This latest accident comes just 4 days after a tragic accident, also in Cianjur, killed 16 people when a contrainer truck lost control and flipped, hitting into a number of other vehicles in the village of Bangbayang on Saturday, said police.
In this accident, the trailer truck veered into an oncoming lane, where it collided with four motorbikes and two minivans. The truck then hit into a house on the side of the road and flipped over, rolling a number of times before coming to rest on its wheels.
These two tragic accidents have raised concern over road safety in Indonesia, with many bus passengers coming forward to complain that bus drivers drive recklessly on the winding, poorly maintained roads in the region. Calls are coming from the public to the government to make changes to improve the safety of bus transport in the area.