DM Monitoring
JAKARTA: An overloaded truck carrying 29 people on Wednesday flipped over in Indonesia’s West Papua province, killing 18 passengers, including a toddler, local authorities said.
The truck was going downhill in the remote Arfak mountains at dawn when the driver lost control and hit a cliff while attempting to brake, the local police chief in Manokwari district, Parasian Herman Gultom, told media.
Parasian said the passengers were mainly miners, and the truck, which was also carrying logs of wood and auto parts, was overloaded.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said in a statement it learned of the accident soon after it happened and sent 13 rescuers.
13 of the passengers had died instantly, Parasian said, while five others died while receiving treatment.
Indonesia, a resource-rich country with an active illegal mining industry, sees occasional industrial accidents. In 2019, dozens of people died after a makeshift illegal mine collapsed in North Sulawesi province, while another accident in the same region killed at least five the previous year.
Meanwhile, Ten people were killed including four French citizens, one Belgian national and five Egyptians, and another 14 tourists were injured, when a bus collided with another vehicle in southern Egypt on Wednesday, officials said. The accident occurred on the road between the city of Aswan and the temples of Abu Simbel, a popular tourist site several hours further south, a statement from the Aswan governorate said. The collision forced the bus off the road and caused it to catch fire, according to a statement from Egypt’s public prosecution.
Those killed included the bus driver, his assistant, a tour guide and two people in the second vehicle, the prosecution said.
Medical staff were checking bodies to verify their identity, it added. The accident resulted in the injury of 14 French and Belgian tourists, it said.
