20161016 10 killed, 7 injured in tour bus fire
Korea Feb 24 2017 “Automobile & Railway”
Dead : dead more than 10 Burnout : --- Injured : injured 1 to 9
10 killed, 7 injured in tour bus fire
Updated: 2016-10-16 09:24
By Choi Ha-young
A fire on a tour bus killed 10 people Thursday night on a highway in Ulsan. Seven others on the bus, which was carrying 22 people including a tour guide and the driver, were injured.
About 10:10 p.m., the bus scraped against a crash barrier several times while changing lanes. It then caught fire.
The passengers could not get out because the crash barrier was blocking the door. Some of them managed to break the window and escape, but 10 people could not escape from the smoke and fire, survivors and witnesses said.
Firefighters extinguished the fire at 11:01 p.m. Only the frame of the bus was left.
The tour guide told police that they couldn’t find the emergency hammer, so the driver used a fire extinguisher to break the windows.
The driver, surnamed Lee, 49, claimed that one of the tires went flat and made the bus lose balance. He added he did not doze off. But police suspect he was speeding, based on traffic camera footage and testimony from some of the passengers that the bus was travelling at high speed before suddenly changing lanes.
Police will request an arrest warrant for the driver for accidental homicide, saying Lee did not drive safely enough. “The driver claims the accident was caused by a flat tire, so we will send the bus to the National Forensic Service for inspection,” Choi Ik-soo, chief of the Ulju Police Station, told journalists at a briefing.
Although Lee’s record includes instances of driving without a license and driving while intoxicated, it is not yet known whether this case is related to past violations. Lee said he was not drunk.
The bus started operation in February by a company named Taehwa, and the tire has never been exchanged since then.
Most of the passengers were retirees of Hanwha Chemical and their spouses. They were heading home from Daegu International Airport after returning from a five-day journey to China. Among the 10 fatalities, six were couples.
The 10 bodies were severely burned due to the intense flames, so police and hospital staff members are having difficulty identifying them. Police collected the bereaved families’ DNA to identify the bodies, which will take at least five days.
Meanwhile, two passersby saved and transported some victims by car before ambulances arrived at the scene. “One of them said he was a teacher and disappeared without additional words,” said a staff member at a hospital in Ulsan.
Web Source：The korea times
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/10/113_216073.html