Yangon – Thirteen people, including two monks, were killed and 27 were injured after two coaches traveling from Mawlamyine in Mon State to Sagaing Region crashed in Mandalay’s Thabeikkyin Township on Tuesday.
Three vehicles were taking about 120 people from the Hetadara Dharma School to a monastery near the famous hilltop Zalon Taung Pagoda in Banmauk Township, Sagaing Region.
According to rescue organizations, the second vehicle slipped off the wet, sloping road near Kyauk Gyi Village in Thabeikkyin.
The third coach then hit a tree to avoid the coach in front, although no one was hurt in that vehicle.
Thirteen passengers died and 27 were injured in the second vehicle, U Hlaing Min Oo, president of the Myanmar Rescue Federation in Mandalay told The Irrawaddy.
“Most of the injured were treated at Thabeikkyin hospital with four taken to Mandalay hospital,” he said.
All the bodies would be returned to Mon State, U Hlaing Min Oo said.
The Latpanhla rescue team’s president Ko Chit Kaung, whose team reached the scene first, told The Irrawaddy that flooding on the sloping road probably caused the accident.
The federation said it took more than four hours to recover the two vehicles with cooperation between rescue teams from Thabeikkyin and Singu in Mandalay and Shwebo in Sagaing, involving about 48 members.
Fifteen people were killed and 10 injured when a light truck fell off a cliff in southern Shan State’s Ywangan Township on Oct. 30.
The vehicle was carrying 25 Buddhist pilgrims, including three monks and three children, from Taunggyi to Mandalay along the Myo Gyi-Ywa Ngan highway when it fell around 600 meters off the mountainside.
SEO: road accident, road safety, deaths, road accidents, road fatalities, Mandalay, Mon State, Sagaing Region, Buddhism, pilgrimage, Myanmar Rescue Federation, Latpanhla