A chain auto accident occurs

A chain auto accident involving four tourists buses carrying high school students, a passenger car and a truck occurred on the rain-pelted Seoul-Pusan Expressway yesterday, killing 18 and seriously injuring 97.

The accident occurred around 2:45 p.m., some 215 kms from Seoul near Kimchon, North Kyongsang Province, when the first of the tourist bus carrying the high school students (license plate Pusan 70 ba 3903) attempted to avoid a car that was pulled over due to an accident. Immediately, two trailing vehicles including another tourist bus carrying students with the Pusan 70 ba 3915 license plate slammed on the brakes but turned over and burned. Then another tourist bus, rolled 15 meters down a hill as it attempted to avoid the overturned vehicles. A truck and three passenger vehicles following behind stepped on the brakes, but flipped over to burn. The accident occurred about 1 km from the Chupungnyong Rest Point, as the students were returning from a four-day field trip from Mt. Seorak in Kangwon Province.

Police immediately carried off the injured to the nearby Cheil and Namsan hospitals in Kimchon, but expected the death toll to rise as many are seriously injured.

The police suspect that the first tourist bus rammed into the central line and the automobile after spotting the standing automobile in the pass-over land. The tourist bus attempted to avoid the standing vehicle, but wet roads rendered the effort useless.

The police said that there were a total of 291 - 282 high school freshmen, and 9 teachers including the school¡¯s 54-year-old principal of the Puil Foreign Language School in Pusan, traveling in a total of seven tourist buses.