Wednesday November 28, 2007
Death still a mystery
MYSTERY still surrounds the death of a woman bus passenger who was killed when she fell from the emergency exit of a Rapid Penang bus in Air Itam, Penang.
After one-and-a-half-months of investigation, the authorities are still in the dark and clueless as to how the emergency exit could have been thrown open during the Oct 13 incident.
State Local Government, Traffic Management, Information and Community Relations Committee chairman Datuk Dr Teng Hock Nan said a check by engineers from the bus manu-facturing company Def-Tech and the relevant authorities showed the door of the Rapid Penang bus was not faulty.
“They have conducted a thorough check on the particular bus. They tried to force open the emergency exit but could not.
“And investigations concluded by police revealed that there was no foul play. But anyhow, the bus manufacturer is still probing to get to the bottom of the case,” he said.
The authorities had yet to find the cause of the accident, he told a press conference at the sidelines of the state legislative assembly yesterday.
Police, Computerised Vehicle Inspection Centre (Puspakom), Road Transport Department (RTD) and the engineers from Def-Tech conducted the investigation.
Passenger Ng Sian Kiang, 35, was said to have been flung out and hit her head on the road near the Jalan Air Itam bus station.
A post-mortem revealed that she died of severe head injuries.
Dr Teng said that after the accident, all the buses manufactured by Def-Tech underwent thorough checks and all were in good condition.
“What we can do right now is to ensure the security measures taken by Rapid Penang is up to the mark. The safety of passengers is our utmost priority,” he added.
On compensation, Rapid Penang chief executive officer Azhar Ahmad said they had yet to hear from the family of the deceased to discuss the matter.
Rapid Penang is a subsidiary of RapidKL that is owned by Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd, a private company registered under the Finance Ministry.
RSS
