At least five people are dead and more than 30 injured after a bus ferrying airport staff to work crashed into a stationary taxi on the island of Tsing Yi this morning.
The horror collision happened on the North West Tsing Yi Interchange about 5am near exit of the the Nam Wan Tunnel as the bus approached the Tsing Ma bridge, according to reports.
According to police, the dead include the male driver of the taxi and four passengers from the bus, including two men and two women.
The coach was carrying workers from five companies providing services at the airport to their jobs, including staff from Cathay Pacific.
Several more bus passengers were in a serious condition, reported Apple Daily. The injured have been sent to four hospitals around Hong Kong, with 37 people involved in the crash.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, superintendent Michael Yip said the preliminary investigation suggested the taxi driver had stopped in the left lane about 40 seconds prior to being struck by the bus.
The cabbie reportedly had turned his hazard lights on, according to Yip.
A passenger on the bus told the SCMP that the bus was going “fast” and “didn’t seem to slow down.”
The impact of the collision catapulted the taxi forward about 50 meters while the bus continued to careen for about 100 meters down the highway, hitting barriers on both sides of the road, Yip said.
Four people, including the 62-year-old driver, were thrown from the bus. Three of the passengers thrown from the bus, two men and one woman, were declared dead at the scene, a police source told the SCMP.
Photos and videos online show the damage wrought by the smash, with the back half of the taxi completely caved in and the front part of the bus torn off. The bus was a shuttle service taking airport workers to their shifts, with the route starting in Tseung Kwan O.
Yip said the coach driver started as a tour bus driver in 2007 and had been driving the airport workers’ shuttle for several years.
“The 62-year-old driver’s last rest day was November 27, and since then he has been working from 7pm until 7am. His working hours were quite long,” he said.
Police are now looking into whether he was tired or under the influence of alcohol. Questions have also been raised about whether passengers were wearing seat belts given several were thrown from the bus.
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