DONG NAI: A bus driver has been charged and taken into custody after his vehicle slammed into highway guardrails and caught fire on Tuesday (July 21), killing seven passengers and injuring five others in the southern city of Dong Nai.
Tran Thanh Hai, 41, a resident of the central province of Khanh Hoa, faces charges of violating road traffic safety regulations, police said later in the day, citing preliminary findings from their investigation.
Hai was driving a sleeper bus carrying 37 passengers en route from Khanh Hoa to HCM City when the incident took place. He set off at around 10pm on Monday.
By about 2am the next day, as the bus traveled along National Highway 1A through Hưng Thịnh Commune, Hai grew drowsy and swerved to avoid a vehicle ahead of him.
The bus veered off course, clipping one guardrail before slamming into a second. The impact ignited a fire beneath the vehicle. Hai and a bus attendant scrambled to get passengers out, but the flames spread too fast, quickly engulfing the entire bus.
Seven passengers – including three young children – died and five were injured, and the vehicle was burned down to its bare metal frame.
Nguyen Van Ut, chairman of Dong Nai City People's Committee, personally inspected the incident site, visited the injured victims, and extending condolences to the victims' families and comforting the injured.
Dong Nai authorities offered VND20 million(US$760) in assistance to each victim's family and VND10 million ($380) to each injured survivor.
Senior city police officials also visited victims that day, offering a further VNĐ5 million ($190) per death and VNĐ3 million ($114) per injury in assistance.
The investigation is ongoing. — Vietnam News/ANN
