Fifty people have been admitted to Angau Hospital after the buses they were traveling on crashed into each other along 7th Street in Lae.
The passengers said the driver of the bus traveling from the town area was drunk. He lost control and drove into the oncoming lane crashing into the other town bound bus. Police arrived on the scene and ferried some of the injured passengers to hospital.
Morris Isai was at the back the bus with his infant son and and nine-year-old daughter when the bus crashed.
“When the accident happened, I shielded by son,” he said. “I was able to save him. The girls who were sitting in the middle of the bus were not injured.”
Forty-five-year-old Nicholas Keponge, broke his jaw and suffered other injuries to his head. He was seated in front when the impact happened.
One of the bus drivers was trapped for 20 minutes in the front cabin. Firefighters, used a hydraulic jaw to cut open the cabin to free him. This is the second accident in 36 hours.
On Saturday night police transported seven passengers to Lae after a landcruiser which was flipped several times when the driver tried to avoid hitting a pig long the Leron section of the highlands highway.
