KUALA LUMPUR (Malaysia), Aug 22 — The ill-fated bus that crashed
near Genting Highlands and killed 37 people onboard yesterday was not
blacklisted by the authorities and had not violated its passenger capacity, the
Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) said today.
Its chief,
Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, told reporters that a check in its transport records
had failed to show any black mark against the bus company.
“The bus was
not overloaded, not according to the conditions of the license,” he told a
joint news conference with acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin
Hussein, at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
Syed Hamid
said the bus was classified as a feeder bus, and explained that it was within
regulations for the vehicle to ferry the reported 53 passengers at the time of
the incident.
According to
its licence, the feeder bus was allowed to carry up to 65 passengers, with a
maximum of 45 seated and 20 standing.
Conflicting
reports had surfaced in the aftermath of the crash that claimed the lives of
the bus driver and 36 passengers; some alleged that the bus had been
blacklisted by the Road Transport Department (RTD) while other reports claimed
it had been blackballed by the police.
Syed Hamid
advised against speculating over the condition or legality of the bus's status,
and asked that the authorities be given time and room to piece together all the
facts.
In an
earlier statement, SPAD said it will form a special task force as suggested by
deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, working with all relevant
agencies to find the cause of the crash.
The federal
land transport authority said it will also place greater attention on security
audits on all express and feeder bus operators.
Hishammuddin,
who was in Hospital Kuala Lumpur to visit some of the survivors, emphasised
that the government had already put in place a mechanism to find the root cause
behind the fatal accident.
He pointed
out that the investigating bodies, especially the police and the Malaysian Institute
of Road Safety Research (Miros), must be given sufficient time to probe the
incident.
"The
bus has not even been taken out yet, so it is hard for the investigators to
look at it," he said, referring to the vehicle, which has yet to be
extricated from where it landed in the ravine after falling 60 metres from off
the mountain road.
"We
must learn from this," he said of the road crash, said to be the country's
worst mishap involving buses in recent years.
"But
the lessons learnt [will] depend on the investigations that are done," he
added.
Hishammuddin
said he will form a special independent panel under his office to coordinate
information on public transport, which he hopes will result in better policies.
Also at the
news conference was the city hospital's head of the emergency department, Dr
Abu Hassan, who confirmed that autopsies on all the 37 dead have been
concluded, with 30 people successfully identified as at 6pm.
"There
are seven more who have yet to be identified, and we are doing our best to try
and complete everything today," he told reporters.
In the last
count, the dead who have been identified included three foreigners — one
Korean, one Nepalese and a Bangladeshi with a Canadian passport — with the
remainder being Malaysians.
The Malay
Mail Online understands
it has been slow-going for the hospital authorities in releasing the remains of
those who died with relatives still trickling in to make the claim.
In an
unofficial count, the remains of 14 victims who died in the crash have been
claimed from the hospital mortuary.
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