JEDDAH, 29 April 2006 — At least 24 people died in a bus accident late on Thursday night on Madinah Road near the village of Asfan, 50 kilometers north of Jeddah, when the 50-seat vehicle carrying pilgrims broke through the railing of a bridge at high speed and plunged into a drainage canal.
Dr. Nahid Siraj, deputy head of the emergency room at King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, confirmed the death toll to Arab News yesterday. Five of the 15 reported survivors remain in the intensive care unit at the hospital. The hospital records indicate that the victims of the accident are mostly from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“Three of them went into emergency surgery shortly after they had been brought to the hospital at midnight. The rest of the injured should be released within a week,” he said.
The doctor added that 12 of the survivors were brought to King Fahd Hospital, two were taken to Al-Salam Hospital and one was shifted to Al-Jeddani Hospital, all in Jeddah. The 24 bodies were taken to the morgue of King Abdul Aziz Hospital.
A statement from the Indian Consulate in Jeddah placed the number of passengers of the bus at 41, including 16 Indians, 13 Pakistanis, nine Bangladeshis and three of unknown nationality. The consulate reported 25 fatalities. D.B. Bhati, Indian vice consul for community welfare, has been assigned to provide assistance to the relatives of the deceased.
The cause of the accident has not yet been determined, but one of the survivors, 30-year-old Pakistani Younis Mohammed Younis, said the driver was speeding when he missed a turn on the bridge over the concrete drainage canal and crashed through the railing. Other survivors interviewed said they believed the driver was also drowsy and that may have caused the accident.
“The ambulance took around half an hour to arrive. It was a mess at the scene, I was laying in pain next to dead people,” said Younis.
The bus was carrying visitors to the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, where they were planning to offer Friday prayers. The bus plunged 10 meters from the bridge, front-first, onto the concrete. Most of the survivors were seated at the back of the vehicle.
The accident reportedly took place around 11 p.m. on Thursday. Five Civil Defense units and 15 ambulance vehicles arrived on the scene.
Al-Madinah daily reported that Saudi national Khalid Al-Harbi owned the bus. The Indian Consulate said in a press release that the passengers had made “private arrangement through an unregistered travel agent.”
Bangladeshi Azhar Ali, 26, who works in a Jeddah services company, said he has been in and out of consciousness after the accident.
“I saw the bus speeding through the edge of the bridge and then falling on its nose.”
Ali said he could hear shouts and screams of his fellow passengers during the fall.
“After the fall I could hear weak voices of people around me, moaning and reciting religious chants. We were certain of death,” he said with tears in his eyes.
Pakistani Abdul Haleem Abdul Qader, 34, who suffered multiple bone fractures in the accident, said he doesn’t remember anything about the accident, and how it took place.
“I’m in pain, my body is broken. How can I work now?” said Abdul Qader, the employee of an Internet café in Jeddah.
“I was going for a spiritual journey, and I know that what happened was the will of Allah,” said 40-year-old Khalilullah Sheikh, an Indian industrial worker in Jeddah.
On hearing of the accident, a regular visitor to Madinah, Muneer, a 28-year-old Kerala native, told Arab News that he thought private buses plying the Jeddah-Madinah route were relatively safe.
“The safety of these buses is average,” he said. “I wouldn’t be afraid to use them again after this accident, but I would think twice about it if my entire family were with me.”
Asked what he thought caused the accident, Muneer said he heard the driver had been speeding.
“They were going super fast so that they could get to Madinah before the Fajr prayer,” he speculated. Mamdouh Saad, a Saudi teacher, said illegal busses that mostly offer cheap prices for trips to Makkah and Madinah are on the rise especially with the increasing number of Umrah visitors. “Those buses lack safety measures and are owned by individuals who mostly care about making quick money,” he said. “The increasing number of illegal buses would contribute to increasing the odds of an accident occurring.”
The 12 injured passengers who were sent to King Fahd Hospital are: Sayed Mohammed Koya, 32, Indian; Sayed Alavi, 30, Indian; Khalilullah Sheikh, 40, Indian; Alam Shamseer, 30, Indian; Asghar Ali, 40, Pakistani; Abdulwahid Saeed, 30, Pakistani; Abdul Haleem Abdulbaqi, 34, Pakistani; Omar Ashfaq, 35, Pakistani; Mohammed Iqbal, 50, Pakistani; Younis Mohammed Younis, 40, Pakistani; Mohammed Yasin, 51, Pakistani; and Azhar Ali, 26, Bangladeshi.
The eight Indians who were confirmed dead by the Indian Consulate are: Kasim Chalil Kizahakke Thalappil, Ali Ahmed, Nazeer Ahmad, Vettanthod Unnikoya, Ashraf Kotttani Purath, Puthan Veettil Shamas, Sajuddin and Ghazanfar,
— With input from Hassan Adawi
