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Truck crashes through Bekasi school bus stop, kills 10, injures 20
Bekasi Police say at least 10 people were killed and 20 others injured, the majority schoolchildren, when a flatbed truck plowed through a bus stop outside an elementary school on Wednesday morning.
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People mill around a flatbed truck and a fallen cell tower on Jl. Sultan Agung in Bekasi, West Java, on Aug. 31, 2022. The truck had plowed through a bus stop in front of an elementary school on Wednesday morning, killing 10 people and injuring at least 20 others, of whom the majority were schoolchildren, and then hitting several vehicles before toppling the tower and coming to a stop. (Antara/Fakhri Hermansyah)
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t least 10 people, including seven students, were killed on Wednesday morning when a flatbed truck plowed through a bus stop outside an elementary school in Bekasi, West Java.
Twenty other people, including 13 schoolchildren, were also injured as the truck careened onto the sidewalk along Jl. Sultan Agung at around 10:30 a.m., hitting people waiting at the bus stop just outside the Kota Baru II & III combined elementary school.
The truck also hit several vehicles and damaged a pickup truck as well as several motorcycles before finally ramming into and toppling a cell tower.
The Jakarta Police's traffic police chief, Sr. Comr. Latif Usman, said the truck driver had apparently lost control of the vehicle.
“The victims were taken to Bekasi Regional General Hospital and Ananda Hospital [Bekasi]. The injured victims are still being treated,” Latif told KompasTV.
Separately, Bekasi Police chief Comr. Salahuddin said the truck driver had been taken to the municipal police headquarters for questioning. He did not release the identity of the driver, who was apparently unhurt.
“At first, the driver claimed he had been sleepy and that truck’s brakes did not work. However, our preliminary investigation found that the brakes work well,” Salahuddin told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
Jl. Sultan Agung is one of the highways connecting Jakarta and Bekasi, and regularly sees heavy traffic, even late at night.
Salahuddin said authorities had redirected traffic from the crash site while debris from the collapsed cell tower was cleared.
Wednesday’s accident is the second deadly crash involving a truck in Greater Jakarta. In July, 10 people were killed and five severely injured after a truck experienced brake failure and plowed into two cars and 10 motorcycles on a downward incline of Jl. Raya Cibubur-Jonggol, also known as Jl. Transyogi, in Cibubur, East Jakarta. (dre)
