Two dead, 16 injured in Malaysia tour bus crash

KUALA LUMPUR: Two people were killed and 16 others injured on Thursday (Jul 3) in southern Malaysia after the tour bus they were travelling on collided with two trucks, local media reported.

The crash near the town of Ayer Hitam, some 250km southeast of the capital Kuala Lumpur, was the second serious accident involving a bus in less than a month on the country’s perilous roads.

It “involved a tour bus, a Volvo truck and a tanker lorry”, Ayer Hitam fire and rescue chief Mohamad Shamin Mohamed Salikin said.

“Rescue personnel found two men trapped inside the bus and confirmed them dead at the scene,” he told the Bernama national news agency.

The men were both from Indonesia, he said.

Sixteen other passengers including the bus driver were injured and taken to hospital, while 28 others were unhurt.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but it came after 15 Malaysian university students died last month in the country’s north, when the bus they were travelling on collided with a minivan and overturned.

Malaysia has a high rate of traffic accidents, with an average of 18 people killed on the roads each day, according to government figures.

Last month’s accident has prompted road safety officials to ramp up their bid to enforce the wearing of seatbelts in buses travelling long distances in the Southeast Asian country.