On March 11, Indonesian police and rescue forces said a bus crashed into a cliff on Java island after the brake was broken, killing at least 27 people and injuring 39 others.
According to the local police agency Eko Prasetyo Robbyanto, at the end of March 10, a bus crashed while carrying a group of middle school students, teachers and parents from the town of Subang in West Java province on a winding, difficult road. The bus was on its way back from a pilgrimage site in the Tasikmalaya district of West Java province and plunged down a 20m-deep ravine after the driver lost control of a steep area in Sumedang district.
Local rescuers worked all night, using cranes to lift injured people out of the wreckage onto the road following the fatal crash.
The head of the Bandung City Search and Rescue Agency, West Java Province, Deden Ridwansah said 27 bodies and 39 injured were taken to a hospital and a medical facility near the accident site. Including the body of a male student, clamped under a bus, was overturned and taken out of the rubble on the morning of March 11. According to Indonesian authorities, those killed included children and adults. Thirteen of the injured are being treated with serious injuries.
Video shown on Indonesian television showed police and rescue forces under the National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia evacuating the injured victims and bringing the dead to an ambulance. Relatives of grieving victims wait for information about their loved ones at Sumedang General Hospital, while others have identified the bodies that have been placed in a morgue.
Indonesian police are investigating the cause of the accident. However, survivors said the car’s brake system appeared to have malfunctioned.
Road accidents often occur in Indonesia because of poor infrastructure and enforcement of traffic safety regulations. In December 2019, 35 people were killed when a passenger bus crashed into a cliff 80 meters deep and plunged into a fast-flowing river on Sumatra. In early 2018, 27 people were killed after a bus carrying tourists plunged down from a hill in a mountainous region of West Java province.