At least 16 killed in crash

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Cheang Sokha

At least 16 workers died and more than 20 were injured when a bus collided with a van loaded with garment workers on Tuesday morning in Svay Rieng province.

Svay Rieng provincial governor Chieng Am said the incident happened at about 7am as the van traveled to the Manhattan Special Economic Zone in Bavet. Sixteen workers were declared dead at the scene, including 14 women and two men.

Am said that eight other workers, six women and two men, were seriously injured while 14 others received slight injuries and were taken to the provincial hospital.

“It is the biggest ever accident to happen in my province,” said Am. “I think the number of deaths will increase as it hopeless for those in critical condition.”

He added that the bus driver, employed by the Sun Hour Company, has been arrested and two seriously injured workers have been sent to Phnom Penh.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/least-16-killed-crash

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Family mourn victims of van crash

Thu, 21 May 2015

Phak Seangly and Charles Parkinson

Svay Rieng province

Eighteen identical piles of food and drink sat next to 18 empty chairs at Svay pagoda yesterday morning. Each would soon be occupied by a relative of one of the people killed in Tuesday’s deadly crash just 15 kilometres away.

Before the ceremony to hand over the gifts of rice, noodles, tinned fish and water, two of the 18 killed would be cremated on the Svay Chrum district pagoda’s grounds.

Mov Chap had only been working at the Kingmaker factory for three months when the minivan she took to work every day was demolished by a speeding passenger bus, killing her and 14 others on the spot.

Three more would later die receiving treatment.

A sobbing procession of friends and relatives accompanied her simple coffin to the clay-walled structure in which she would be cremated.

Those too old to walk arrived by motorbike, those too upset to stand were helped along.

“She was only 27, she was a mother of two,” said a young male attendee, too overcome to give his name.

Once in place, two monks led the prayers to bless her in the next life, as offerings of money and some of the possessions she had cherished were placed on top of her body.

Once the prayers were over, the women and children departed, leaving the older men to light the torches as the younger ones looked on.

Less than an hour later, just 5 metres away, the scene was repeated. With Chap’s fire burning in the background, another Kingmaker employee was laid to rest.

“Why did my daughter have such a short life and die like this?” screamed Mey Sath, whose 23-year-old daughter Son Sorn had also died at the scene.

As the monks led the prayers, the mother begged for one last look at her daughter.

“Let me see my daughter’s face now; I need to touch my daughter.”

Moments later both Mey Sath and her elder daughter Sok San collapsed and were carried away by some of those in attendance.

Relatives of 18 garments workers that were killed on Tuesday in a catastrophic traffic accident sit next to donations of food from the Red Cross yesterday in Svay Rieng province. Vireak Mai

But the worry is far from over for this family. Two more of Mey Sath’s daughters were also in the van, and among those rushed to the capital for emergency treatment.

“Please let my two daughters in Phnom Pen recover soon,” she said, while relatives supported her in the chair where they had seated her.

As the women and children left Son Sorn’s cremation, 50 metres away, family members began to take their seats next to the gift parcels the Red Cross had assembled.

Sitting in one of the chairs was Phorng Sakhourn, 50. She lost her 23-year-old daughter, her daughter-in-law and a second cousin in the crash.

Her daughter’s husband was also in the van, and is currently lying badly injured in a hospital bed in Phnom Penh.

“He was asking for his wife,” she said. “He did not know she had died; they always took the same van.”

One row along from Sakhourn sat 37-year-old Ean Rim with his 5-year-old daughter on his lap. Rim’s wife, Mon Sivon, 27, was another Kingmaker employee who was killed instantly.

Rim said he was just starting his shift at a carpentry workshop when his boss received a call and told him about the accident.

“I didn’t think my wife had died on the spot, I thought she’d just been injured,” he said.

But when he arrived on the scene he found her body lying on the asphalt. A bystander had covered her face with a shirt.

“I never imagined we could have such misfortune,” he said.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national

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Crash details all too familiar

Thu, 21 May 2015

Sean Teehan and Cheang Sokha

The circumstances that led to Tuesday’s deadly accident in Svay Rieng province – a driver’s decision to turn his vehicle into potential oncoming traffic to pass a slower-moving motorist – would be familiar to anyone who has taken a bus, van or taxi on one of Cambodia’s national roads.

The consequences – 18 dead, and more seriously injured when the bus tore through a crowded passenger van – are familiar as well. Of 2,226 fatal road accidents last year, 11 per cent were related to vehicles illegally passing others, said Sovanratnak Sao, technical officer on road safety for the World Health Organization in Cambodia.

And buses have been of particular concern in recent years. In 2013, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport issued warnings to four bus companies for having an excessive number of crashes resulting from negligence. And despite promises in the interim to crack down on such fatal accidents, those who ply Cambodia’s roads regularly said that tragedies like Tuesday’s are the result of an inattention to other motorists among drivers that borders on routine.

Sarin, a bus driver for Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation who drives a regular route between the capital and Siem Reap province, said he undertakes a careful decision-making process when determining whether or not to pass on a road laden with slower-moving motorbikes and cars.

He added that while the company wants its buses arriving on schedule, drivers “are never blamed [when they don’t] as they understand the situation and our difficulty”.

But Sarin harboured no illusions that such tactics were universally employed. “Some other [bus] drivers do not care about the safety of others on the road,” he said.

That came as no revelation to Ean Rim, whose 27-year-old wife, Mon Sivon, was among the 18 killed in Svay Rieng. Rim said yesterday said that his wife and others chose to ride with the driver of the van because he had a reputation for safe driving. But, he continued, with so many others on the roads, driving carefully is no guarantee of arriving safely.

“The traffic is unspeakable at the moment,” Rim said yesterday. “There are many heavy trucks and buses [illegally passing] each other on the roads.”

The government has promised before to tackle the issue of road deaths – particularly those caused by bus crashes – though numbers remain stubbornly high. In fact, last year, both the number of accidents – more than 4,800 – and fatalities – more than 2,100 – represented an increase over 2013.

Following a spate of deadly accidents in a week’s span in 2013, a Ministry of Interior official said black boxes, not unlike those used by airlines, would be mandated for each of the passenger buses operating in the Kingdom. “We want the companies to put black boxes in the buses to follow the drivers and know how they are driving, and to check the speed they are driving at as well,” then-director of the Ministry of Interior’s Public Order Department Him Yan said more than three years ago now.

However, the department’s new boss, Lieutenant General Run Rathveasna, said yesterday he had never heard of the plan.

Chhoun Voun, deputy general director of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport’s General Department of Transport, said new traffic legislation, which passed into law in January, should lower the amount of collisions on the Kingdom’s roads.

If someone is found at fault for an accident resulting in a fatality, Voun said, they will now face a prison sentence of between one and three years and a fine of between 4 million and 15 million riel ($1,000 and $3,750). Causing a crash which results in multiple deaths is punishable with two to five years imprisonment and a 10 million to 25 million riel ($2,500 to $6,250) fine.

Indeed, Le Vang Phing, driver of the bus in Tuesday’s fatal accident, sits in a prison cell on reckless driving charges.

For his part, Lieutenant General Rathveasna promised that a combination of education and enforcement would ultimately lower the yearly death toll (74 garment workers alone were killed in traffic accidents last year).

“We need to cooperate together, including law enforcement officers, not just fines. We can see that about 50 to 60 per cent of road incident caused from speeding,” he said, pledging greater emphasis on both speeding violations and drunk driving.

But some, like well-known carrier Giant Ibis, say the current situation demands pro-active steps on the part of the bus companies themselves.

Yoy Vibol, a transport manager for the bus company in Phnom Penh, yesterday said that drivers there receive extensive training and drive in buses with GPS systems that monitor their speed, and are reprimanded if they surpass velocity regulations.

Drivers are told to only pass vehicles in front of them if the road is straight, and they can see no oncoming vehicles in the distance.

But those daily judgment calls ultimately put the responsibility into the lap of one man, said Sorya driver Sarin.

“We have to be careful when we take another side of the road,” he said. “[some drivers] just drive fast, because they think the bus’ size makes it less dangerous, but they do not think about the danger they pose to others.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY PHAK SEANGLY

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/crash-details-all-too-familiar

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Driver charged, goods investigated

Thu, 21 May 2015

Phak Seangly and Charles Parkinson

Svay Rieng province

The bus driver allegedly at fault in Tuesday’s fatal crash in Svay Rieng province was yesterday charged with death caused by reckless driving, as police opened an investigation into whether tonnes of goods found on the bus were illegally imported.

Le Vang Phing, 43, had been driving the bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh when the accident happened, after he attempted to overtake a sedan at high speed and ended up ploughing into an oncoming van loaded with commuting workers.

“He was charged and is now at the provincial prison,” said Svay Rieng provincial traffic officer Tie Hiebsie at the provincial court yesterday.

Hiebsie said Vietnamese national Le had been charged, after initially being placed in detention following his arrest at the scene on Tuesday.

Investigating judge Heng Phally, who presided over Le’s hearing, declined to comment on the case, while provincial deputy prosecutor Orng Ry could not be reached for comment.

At the time of the crash, the minivan had 39 people on board, 18 of whom were killed.

There were only six people aboard the bus, which was loaded up with almost 8 tonnes of goods, including more than 6 tonnes of clothing and various other items, such as shampoo, door locks and books.

Authorities are currently verifying that the goods were legitimately imported.

“We are transporting them to the customs office to check them against their documents,” said Svay Rieng customs officer Nguon Vuth yesterday.

Meanwhile, the bus was dragged away from the crash site on Tuesday and left outside Svay Rieng provincial police station to prevent it being burned by locals outraged by the incident.

“If they had burnt it, the van, the homes of villagers near the road, would be burned too,” a policeman was overheard saying outside Svay Rieng provincial police station.

Le’s charging comes amid a swirl of demands from victims’ friends and family members for him to face justice.

“I want the authorities to put the Vietnamese driver in prison for the rest of his life because he crashed and killed many villagers,” said Hing Bros, 49, yesterday morning at a funeral held for one of the victims at Svay Chrum province’s Svay pagoda.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/driver-charged-goods-investigated