OTTAWA: Three people were killed and
nearly two dozen were injured on Friday (Jan 11) when a double-decker
bus struck a bus shelter in the Canadian capital of Ottawa during rush
hour, city officials said.
Part of the upper right side of the bus was shorn off in the collision,
which happened shortly before 4pm (5am Saturday, Singapore time) at a
busy transit station in the west end of the city.
"It is with deep sadness that I report there were three confirmed
casualties, two of which were on the bus and one that was on the
platform," Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told reporters at a news conference
late on Friday.
Watson also said that 23 people were injured in the collision, some very
seriously, and taken to hospital. The Ottawa Hospital confirmed on
Twitter that it had received nine patients in critical condition from
the crash.
Ottawa police chief Charles Bordeleau said the bus driver was arrested
at the scene and taken in for questioning, but he declined to provide
further details.
"An investigation is now underway on the cause of the collision," he told reporters.
Investigators were expected to be on the scene through the night, with
frigid temperatures in Ottawa expected to dip down to minus 22 degrees
Celsius overnight.
"There's no question that the weather adds complexity at the scene,"
said Bordeleau. It was unclear if weather contributed to the crash.
Photos and video from the scene showed emergency responders treating a
number of people on the ground, as others used ladders to unload
passengers trapped on the bus' upper level.
Bilal Gill, a passenger on the upper deck, told broadcaster CBC News that people at the front were pinned under their seats.
"There was definitely people pinned. And there was a bit of blood on the floor," he said.
This the second major crash in recent years involving an Ottawa transit
bus. A double-decker commuter bus crashed into a passenger train in
September 2013, killing six people including the bus driver.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/51986
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