Two major bus accidents occurring on opposite sides of the globe this weekend have led to the deaths of three people, with dozens more injured.
In the first incident, students hailing from Queens in New York were injured after their charter bus crashed in Columbus, Ohio, while taking the students home after a school even in St Louis. 16 students and three adult teachers from William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens were returning home from a robotics competition in St Louis which the bus driver appeared to lose control of their bus, causing the bus to topple over onto its side at approximately 7.30am on Sunday morning.
According to reports from CBS news, the bus toppled over as the driver was taking an exit from Interstate 70 eastbound in Columbus. 15 students and four adults sustained minor injuries in the accident, and were taken to hospital where they were treated. All have since been discharged from hospital.
A second charter bus was hired for the remainder of the journey after the injured were released from hospital. Following the accident, a spokesperson for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reported that the bus operators had failed to comply with requests from the FMCSA for a full compliance audit of the company’s fleet of buses. The bus company was operating under the name Platinum Magic Carpet Ride LLC, and had been issued a warning by the State of Maryland that their operating license may be revoked within 10 days if they did not complete the required compliance audit.
The cause of the accident is not yet known, and local police are currently conducting an investigation into the incident.
In other bus accident news, three Taiwanese tourists were killed on Monday after their tour bus slid off the road and plunged down a slope in a mountainous area of China’s Hunan Province. According to the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, the bus was carrying 14 Taiwanese tourists and was en route to the World Heritage site of Zhangjiajie when the accident occurred. Three members of the group were killed instantly in the crash, with the remaining 11 passengers injured.
The group was travelling on a tour organized by the Taiwanese travel agency Lion Travel, which confirmed that the group had left Taiwan for China on Sunday. Representatives from Lion Travel will be travelling to China to help the victims of the accident, said the company.