A Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM) official bus veered off the road and crashed at KM25 of the New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE) yesterday morning.
The bus was carrying 32 UIAM students. Three passengers are in critical condition, with five others seriously hurt and 23 with minor injuries.
In the 9.35am incident, the bus was carrying its passengers – 16 male and 16 female students of the Student Facilitators Club – to the Bukit Cerakah forest reserve in Shah Alam for a one-day programme.
KL Fire and Rescue Department director Khiruddin Drahman said the driver was believed to have lost control, causing the bus to swerve left and into a trench pipe dug for an underground pipe, sweeping construction cones out of the way. A distress call was received by the Sri Hartamas fire station at 9.42am.
17 fire and rescue personnel from the Sri Hartamas and Hang Tuah fire stations worked for an hour to extricate the injured passengers.
UIAM corporate communication division senior deputy director Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman said 30 of the injured students were sent to Sungai Buloh Hospital, while the remaining two were warded at Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
“Three of them were admitted to the intensive care unit, while the others received outpatient treatment,” he told The Malay Mail Online.
“I was playing games on my phone. I noticed the bus was swerving to the left,” the 21-year old automotive engineering student Muhammad Zaid Rozali said.
“Suddenly, the bus crashed into the construction site beside the highway.”
He said the scenario inside the bus was chaotic after it crashed.
“Some students were crying. Everyone was traumatised. Some were stuck in their seats.
“A doctor who was driving on the highway came to help the injured students to clean and wrap their wounds. Some construction workers also came to help.”
Zaid claimed the bus driver was asleep at the wheel when the accident happened. “My friend saw the driver, who is in his 50s, and thought he looked sick before we started our journey.”
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