A ROAD accident involving two Victory Liner buses along Marcos Highway in Tuba, Benguet, resulted in one fatality and dozens of injuries last Saturday night, May 30, authorities confirmed on Sunday, May 31.
According to reports from “24 Oras Weekend,” the collision took place around 8:00 p.m., triggering an immediate and massive emergency response operation. Rescue teams worked quickly to assist passengers, with a total of 95 individuals pulled from the scene and rushed to different hospitals in the area for medical treatment.
Wilhelm Abance of the Tuba Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) described the chaotic scene responders encountered upon arrival.
“We found the two buses — one was further up the road, the one that was hit first. The bus that struck it ended up lower down, overturned and flipped on its side,” Abance recounted. He added that one passenger was trapped inside the wreckage and had to be carefully extricated by rescue personnel, fortunately surviving the ordeal despite being pinned down.
Preliminary investigations showed that the accident was caused when an ordinary Victory Liner bus carrying 87 passengers lost its brakes while navigating a downhill curve coming from Baguio City.
The out-of-control vehicle first hit an SUV, then crashed head-on into an air-conditioned Victory Liner bus traveling uphill with 39 people on board, before finally smashing into a roadside barrier and overturning. Authorities are continuing their probe to determine the exact cause of the mechanical failure and whether negligence contributed to the fatal crash.
