21 killed in Hong Kong bus accident
Double-decker filled with children and commuters plunged off bridge
HONG KONG, July 10 — A double-decker bus carrying children and commuters collided with a truck and plunged off a Hong Kong expressway bridge on Thursday, killing 21 people in the territory’s worst traffic accident in recent memory. The bus driver was among the dead. Twenty passengers were injured, one of them a nine-year-old girl.
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER of Police Bonnie Smith Yee-lo told a news conference that the truck driver had been arrested and would be charged with dangerous driving.
After the collision, which took place shortly after dawn, the bus crashed through a bridge safety barricade on the busy Tuen Mun Road in the New Territories and tumbled 160 feet down a cliff.
Sobbing relatives of some of the dead visited the hillside in the evening to pray and burn paper offerings for the souls of the dead.
A young man, who would only be identified as Mr. Choi, said he tried repeatedly to contact his girlfriend, who traveled to work every day on that route, after he heard the news.
“I kept phoning her when I heard the news of the crash this morning, but got no answer. Only later did I know she had died,” he said, choking with tears and burying his face in his hands.
The impact left part of the bus embedded in the earth and rescuers had to saw their way through the mangled wreckage before they could pull bodies out.
Several passengers died instantly. Of the 21 who died, 14 were aged between 24 and 66. The rest had yet to be identified, a government spokeswoman said.
“My little niece saw the bus fall off the bridge and crash on to the hillside with a big bang,” an elderly woman living near the bridge told reporters.
“She was crying and saying many people would die.”
Among the 20 injured was a nine-year-old girl and 16 people aged between 24 and 54, the government spokeswoman added. The rest of the injured had yet to be identified.
Some of the victims were as young as nine, officials said.
The territory’s deeply unpopular leader, Tung Chee-hwa, who is often seen as out of touch with the people, rushed to the scene and ordered a full probe into the accident.
Police said skid marks indicated that the bus and the truck had collided and the bus was pushed off the highway.
“At some point both drivers applied their brakes, you can see from the scene the large skid marks,” chief superintendent of police Austin Kerrigan told reporters.
Chan Cho Chak, managing director of bus company Kowloon Motor Bus Holdings, ruled out any problems with the vehicle. He said it was relatively new and had been serviced just a few days ago.
