Four prison staff killed when bus plunges into ravine

[Kanetsugu Naoe]

Published: Thursday December 16, 2010 MYT 1:31:00 PM
Updated: Thursday December 16, 2010 MYT 3:12:28 PM

Four prison staff killed when bus plunges into ravine

PENAMPANG: Four officers from the Tawau Prison were killed when a bus from the Sabah Prisons Department plunged into a ravine at Kampung Moyog, Penampang at about 10.10am on Thursday.

According to a list provided by the Fire and Rescue Department at the scene of the accident, the dead were identified as Madinh Alhmdullah, Selamat Idris, Muslimin Muhammad and Sabirin Murad.

The four were among 25 passengers in the bus that was on its way from Keningau to Kota Kinabalu after participating in the Sabah Prisons Director Cup football tournament in Keningau Thursday.

Injured passengers were sent to a number of nearby hospitals. - Bernama

 

[Kanetsugu Naoe]

Prison officers killed in crash


Friday December 17, 2010

Prison officers killed in crash

RUBEN SARIO
[email protected]

KOTA KINABALU: Four Sabah prison officers were killed when a bus plunged down a steep slope and overturned several times near Kampung Moyog, some 45km from here, yesterday. In the incident at about 10.15am, the driver of the department bus lost control of the vehicle before it went off the road and plummeted down the slope. Twenty-one people including family members of prison officers were injured.

In safe hands: Search and rescue officers helping one of the accident victims, Ulil Lamri, to safety at the crash site near Kampung Moyog in Penampang Thursday.

Seven have been listed in critical condition. The impact of the accident along the hilly and winding Tambunan-Kota Kinabalu trunk road sheared off the roof of the bus, pinning two of the dead victims. The injured and the bodies of the dead were taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. A Fire and Rescue Services Department official listed the dead as bus co-driver Muslimin Muhamad, Madinah Alahamdulilah, Selamat Idris and Sabirin Murad. Bus driver Rizwan Samda Mudin was injured.

Colleagues of the prison officers killed in the crash trying hard to control their tears.

Among the first to be plucked out by rescuers was 14-year-old Mohd Hafidz Ramli, whose father, Ramli Basal, was among the injured. Mohd Hafidz said that after negotiating a sharp bend on a steep downhill slope, the driver lost control of the bus.

“It seemed as if he was trying to apply the brakes but he couldn’t control the vehicle. “Everybody was screaming, then I passed out,” he said. The bus also narrowly missed an electricity pole before the plunge. Muslimin’s 14-year-old son, Mohd Noraihan, who had been sitting beside his father before the accident, said he was thrown about when the bus overturned.

“All I could remember was the bus shuddering as it plunged down the slope and I was thrown about in the bus,” he said after being pulled out from the wreckage. The 40-seater bus was one of three buses carrying prison officers and their family members back after a three-day inter-state departmental football tournament.

 

[Space Invaders]

Thorough inspection of bus wreckage


Saturday December 18, 2010

Thorough inspection of bus wreckage

By RUBEN SARIO
[email protected]

KOTA KINABALU: A detailed technical inspection will be carried out on the wreckage of a Prisons Department bus that plunged into a ravine, killing four officers. National vehicle inspection company Puspakom Sdn Bhd will carry out the inspection on the 40-seater bus that went down a steep slope and overturned several times near Kampung Moyog, about 45km from here on Thursday.

“Among the things we are looking at is the condition of the brakes,” said Sabah police commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib. The bus, travelling along the hilly and winding Tambunan-Kota Kina_balu trunk road, was carrying 25 people, including the four officers who died in the 10.15am tragedy.

Hamza said that of the 19 other passengers, seven who were earlier listed critical were now in a stable condition at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital here.
One is still being treated while the eleven others have been discharged.

The bus was one of three carrying home Prisons officers and their family members after a three-day inter-state football tournament. The driver allegedly lost control of the vehicle, causing it to go off the road and plummeting down the slope.