At least 11 people were injured, some seriously, when a Karwa bus ploughed into commuters at the waiting area of the Mowasalat bus terminus in Al Ghanim yesterday.<\/p>\n
The bus driver accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes which caused the mishap, say sources.<\/p>\n
The bus suddenly zoomed at a speed so high that it tore down two steel benches where some of the victims were sitting, said an eyewitness. The waiting shed also nearly crashed due to the strong impact of the collision.<\/p>\n
Among those injured were a Filipino, some Bangladeshis and Nepalese, who were immediately rushed to the hospital, according to sources.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe freak accident happened at around 5pm and since it was still Eid holidays, a lot of people were waiting in the area,\u201d said an eyewitness working in a nearby shop.<\/p>\n
The bus, which was driven by an African national according to eyewitnesses, was numbered 11 and was plying around the Matar Qadeem area route.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe driver might have mistakenly stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes,\u201d said a bus driver.<\/p>\n
This was the first time such an incident happened in the bus terminus since Mowasalat started operating buses eight years ago. The bus terminus receives from 80,000 to 100,000 commuters on a daily basis and the number increases during weekends and national holidays.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody expected it to happen. I think the driver was quite stressed out. It has been a busy week for us because of Eid Al Fitr,\u201d said another bus driver.<\/p>\n
An eyewitness said some of those seriously injured were standing ready to board the bus while the bus was still on its way.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommuters should stay far from this area and wait several metres away until the bus makes a full stop. Only then they should approach the bus,\u201d advised one of the bus drivers, \u201cbut this rarely happens because everyone rushes to get a seat in the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
This newspaper tried to contact the Philippine Embassy regarding the Filipino who was injured but the Embassy said it was not yet informed of the incident.<\/p>\n
Mowasalat officials were also not available for comment.<\/p>\n
Source:The Peninsula<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 11 people were injured, some seriously, when a Karwa bus ploughed into commuters at the waiting area of the Mowasalat bus terminus in Al Ghanim yesterday.<\/p>\n
The bus driver accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes which caused the mishap, say sources.<\/p>\n
The bus suddenly zoomed at a speed so high that it tore down two steel benches where some of the victims were sitting, said an eyewitness. The waiting shed also nearly crashed due to the strong impact of the collision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-qatar_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}