A city bus ploughed into 32 vehicles waiting at a traffic light during the morning rush hour in Seongnam, South Korea, on Wednesday, injuring 57 people, nine of them seriously, according to the Gyeonggi Province fire department and the Yonhap news agency. None of the injuries was reported to be life-threatening.
The crash happened at 7:34am local time in Yatap-dong, in Seongnam’s Bundang Ward, just south of Seoul. The bus, driven by a man in his 60s, struck four other buses, a cargo truck and 27 passenger cars before coming to a stop against a traffic barrier and median strip, after travelling about 100 to 150 metres through the queue of waiting vehicles, according to Yonhap and KBS.
A rush-hour chain collision
The Gyeonggi Province fire department deployed 88 emergency personnel and 33 vehicles to the scene and set up an emergency medical station to treat the injured, according to reports. Most of the damaged vehicles had been cleared from the road by 9:30am local time, according to The Independent. The bus driver was also injured and was freed from the bus and taken to hospital, KBS reported.
The bus first struck a vehicle waiting at the traffic light, then hit vehicles in succession as it travelled down the road, according to KBS. The chain collision blocked the road through the morning peak, and emergency crews worked through the aftermath while traffic was diverted around the scene.
What caused it
The driver told police the bus’s brakes had failed, according to Yonhap and the Bundang district police station. A breathalyser test found no alcohol in the driver’s system, police said, and investigators plan to check whether he had taken drugs. Police have secured the vehicle’s black box and other evidence as they investigate the exact cause of the crash.
Investigators have not yet determined whether a mechanical fault was involved, and the brake-failure account remains the driver’s claim rather than an established finding. The crash comes a day after Bulgaria’s 86-vehicle fog pile-up killed 12 people, a reminder of how quickly a single vehicle can turn a routine commute into a mass-casualty scene.
Related reading: Bulgaria Declares Day of Mourning After Fog Pile-Ups Kill 12
