Tour bus carrying tourists explodes into a fireball, so far, 26 Chinese tourists -and the driver- died in the blaze.
Condolences. Horrible.
Death of 26 people is a tragedy. Are there statistics of bus related accidents world wide? I get the feeling Taiwan is probably ranked in the top 10. Taiwan needs to straighten up its public transportation regulation and prevent needless accidents such as the death of these 26 tourists from happening.
Just heard this.
Should a bus like that explode/catch fire that easily (outside of a Michael Bay movie)??
I have a pretty low opinion about the way those tour buses are built, maintained, and driven.
Tour buses and large haul buses are especially prone, due to the usual cut corner cutting maintenance and overworking of bus drivers -over 12 hour shifts. In this case, sealing of the back door really sealed the fate of those on board.
So horrible, sad and preventable.
Bus was only 6 years old. Th etour members where on their way home, had arrived on the 12th. The driver was brand new, it was his second tour.
24 travelers, one tour guide, one driver. 8 men, 16 women.
According to the firemen, all doors were stuck, couldn’t be opened.
Also, the bus didn’t ram into the railing then burst into flames. The front of the bus first burst into flames, rolled along for 2 kilometers, then rammed into the inner lane jersey wall, before crossing the lanes and ramming into the outer lane railing. The driver and the tour guide probably were gone before the bus ever hit the railing.
Either the passengers brought something dangerous on to the bus, which might be unlikely as it was the front of the bus that burst into flames, or something was wrong with the bus, even if it had only operated for 6 years.
One more tragedy to this annus horribilis.
So sorry for the families who will have to face how much their loved one suffered in their last moments.
on a side note, each of the 24 unfortunate Chinese tourists paid 1,3000 TWD for their 8 days 7 nights trips that includes meals, accommodations, sans airfares. That’s 1,733 TWD per day, without airfare.
Was the bus made in China by any chance?
How does a bus catch fire from a front-end crash through a guardrail?
How come the windows couldn’t be opened? (On many buses, I see that the windows can be popped out or broken in an emergency.)
I’m guessing the mainlanders couldn’t follow a orderly line and trampled each other before even getting to a emergency exit or the part of the window the breaks open easily with those little hammers.
Bus is Daewoo (Korean) brand. Judging by passenger statistics, 66% woman, and not accounting age into this, they probably were lost in panic. So the news mentioned they only had a golden period of 30 seconds. Real tragedy, the youngest was 12 years old.
That is just horrible beyond words. Nobody deserves to die like that. Brings me back to memories of a horrific bus fire in Taiwan in the late 90s that killed something like near 50 school children.
Taiwan tour buses have sealed windows. And you can only get out via the front door. Some , only some, may have a rear escape as well.
That is why i like the greyhound buses. All the side windows can be opened in an emergency and you have a chance to get out.
All tour buses should be changed to have side windows that can be opened outwards with a simple pull of a lever.
In this case did the front door jam? And people simple were not able to get out?
edit:
taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003651398
looks to me like the engine caught fire and while the driver tried to stop the passengers went to the back. Seems there was the usual sealed windows and there is a door midways on the right side and a door in the front also on the right side. Both blocked by the guardrail when they crashed against it.
IF the windows could be opened outwards like grey hound buses can, the passengers could have escaped.
All buses should be redone to have windows that open outwards before the next tragedy strikes.
They had a chance if the bus had not crashed alongside the rail making the doors unable to be opened.
Where are the five emergency exits and the hammers the bus was supposed to have? Once again I support having all windows being able to be opened outwards with a single lever like on greyhound buses. This affords the best chance of escape. There is no time to fumble around for hammers and to find the few emergency doors when on fire.
All died onboard that bus.
The unfortunate group’s itinerary. If you visit any of the hotel’s website, you’d notice that for a non-Chinese tour group tourist, a night is going to cost you above 2800 TWD at least. That’s twice the price of the group’s daily fare per person.
chaininn.com.tw/hotels/hotelPage2.asp?iNo=88
For 1,733 TWD per day, they visited Sun moon lake, Alisan, Kending, and Taidong.
The travel agency, the tour bus agency are both own by the Bo family. The owner of the travel agency, Bo Wenfu (薄文甫), whose last Chinese travel agency was banned by the government from taking in Chinese tourists for violating Tourism Bureau’s regulations, simply started a new agency and keeps on doing business as usual.
Most of the hotels, gem shops, restaurants and boutique/luxury shops the tour group visited belongs to the Tourism & Luxury Boutique Association (中華觀光精品產業協會), chaired by a Amoy (Xiamen) native, Zhang Yali (張雅琍). Zhang is herself embroiled in tax evasion charges, because her establishments, which Chinese tourists are obligated to visit and buy things, does not issue Fapiao (Uniformed Receipt).
Places the Chinese tourists are obligated to shop at:
寶得利鑽石 - Baodeli diamond shop, owned by Zhang Yali. On it’s board sits a familiar name, owner of the travel agency, Bo Wenfu (薄文甫).
寶時鐘錶 - Watch shop, owned and managed by Hong Kong capital
原力特產店 - Aboriginal crafts, produce, and herb shop, sounds fine, by owned by the vice-chair of the Tourism & Luxury Boutique Association, Zhang Wenbiao (張文標), who also happens to be on the Baodeli diamond shop’s board.
元本紅股份有限公司 - Some kind of coral and jade jewelry store, and a subsidiary of Baodeli diamond shop
得麗美妝 - a makeup story, not listed under the Tourism & Luxury Boutique Association, however, it’s also a subsidiary of Baodeli diamond shop. It’s registered name is 寶得利國際股份有限公司京華營業所
For the entire trip, the Chinese tourists paid next to next to come to Taiwan, and stays and eats at establishment owned by Chinese funded and managed organizations. Taiwanese travel agencies, local shops and restaurants earns next to nothing, and are hit with the consequences of reduced local and international tourists.
If the Chinese tourists don’t spend their money at these luxury goods stores, the travel agency loses money. So the tourists are often bullied into buying things.
That’s all good to know but they don’t deserve to be burned to death in a bus fire
Tourist from China are overrated maybe it’s time to reduce their numbers drastically
The point though is that these buses are not safe and steps should be taken to make tour buses safe from another similar tragedy
How did the bus lose control in the first place? A blowout? Driver incompetence? Drunk driving?
The fire started. You can see in the video: the bus started smoking, so the driver starts puling over from the mid lane to the outer lane…when something happens -probably flames engulfed the driver or something equally awful- and the bus zigzags, hits the inner railing, bounces, and hits the outer railing where the side door gets stuck. All the while, flames from the front of the bus disperse and take over the whole unit, as well as tar thick smoke.
If there were hammers on board, they were probably thrown about in the chaos of the zigzag and crash. Still, 30 seconds to one minute, and the toxic smoke probably knocked most people out before that.
That is what most bus drivers interviwed are saying: that the windows should have been knocked down -probably the people inside were too incapacitated.
Of the 5 emergency exist available, 1 was the door by the driver side -on fire- one was the right side door -jammed in the crash. Number 3 would be the left side emergency exit, where the bodies piled up and the one the cop could not open from the outside, so , somehow, it did not work. 4 would be the one of the roof -in that smoke, impossible to find. 5 would be either window breaking -and we know that did not happen.
They wer ecomparing it here to the crash at Shueshan tunnel. People did escape in that one, most horrific too -remember the ones that did not make it were the passengers in the vehicle sandwiched between the two buses.
No one deserves such a horrible death. What we are all conerned is that too many Chinese toursist have died in accidents that keep happening because of shody maintenance of teh buses. If this is such an important market, care must be taken. But as this kind of business is corruption filled, the cost cutting has deadly consequences.
There was talk before of China banning tour groups to Taiwan. This is a perfect excuse. And it will hurt Chines einterests most as we can see -main investors and beneficiaries are not teh Taiwanese.