/heavy sarc
Posted on 06/14/2010 11:49:15 PM PDT by bushpilot1
CEBU CITY—The tourist bus rented by Iranian medical students that plunged into a 30-meter ravine on Sunday had an ominous plate number: DWZ-666, the “Number of the Beast” in the Bible’s Book of Revelation.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but Senior Supt. Erson Digal said that the brakes apparently failed before the bus plummeted into the ravine in Balamban town, 60 kilometers outside Cebu, killing 20 Iranians and the Filipino driver and injuring 30 others.
Villagers and police pulled bodies from the mangled wreckage at the rocky bottom, while a backhoe sent by a nearby Japanese shipbuilding company attempted to lift the bus, said Lt. Col. Wilson Feria, the regional military spokesperson.
Cables were attached but the bus with 51 people aboard when it fell was too heavy and there was a danger the backhoe might be pulled down, he added.
Feria said it was not clear if the Iranians were out on a medical mission or for an outing at one of several resorts in and around Cebu.
Probe left to police
Poorly maintained vehicles and roads, along with inadequate safety signs, railings, training and weak traffic law enforcement, are blamed for many deadly accidents in the Philippines.
Iranian Consul Mohammad Tavana, who arrived in Cebu late Sunday, has accepted that it was an accident, according to Dr. Potenciano Larrazabal Jr., owner of Cebu Doctors Hospital where a number of the fatalities and the injured were working as medical residents.
Tavana was leaving the investigation to police authorities, Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal said the consul’s primary concern was to ensure that the injured, 24 of whom were confined at Cebu Doctors Hospital, received proper medical care and that the remains of the fatalities would be brought home to Iran as soon as possible.
Chief Supt. Lani-O Nerez, the Central Visayas police director, said investigators would attempt to determine the cause of the accident and who should be held liable for it.
The dead included 20 Iranians, including a 20-month-old boy, and their Filipino driver, Jaime Batoon, who was also the owner of the bus company, JD Rent a Car (not Catlleya as earlier reported), that operated the 55-seater Hino.
Bus newly acquired
Marcelin Muñez, Batoon’s common-law wife and business partner, said that the company would compensate the victims as the bus was properly insured and has complete registration papers.
Muñez, who claimed Batoon’s body at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes on Monday, said the Hino was the first bus acquired by Batoon for their rent-a-car business and was bought only last May 24 from Subic Freeport and brought to Cebu two days later.
She said the bus had a regular driver but he was on another mission and Batoon decided to drive the bus himself.
It was only the second time that the bus was rented, she said, for P15,000 for a day.
Batoon’s body was the last recovered from the wreckage at about 11 p.m., some 12 hours after it fell into the ravine while negotiating a sharp downhill curve.
Residency program
The fatalities included ophthalmologists, radiologists, a pathologist and a surgeon, Larrazabal said. Another ophthalmologist, he said, survived the crash but lost his wife and 8-year-old son.
The Iranians were in the Philippines under a special arrangement for a residency program with the Professional Regulations Commission, Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal said the Iranian professionals were staying in Cebu with their families, which explained why some were bringing their children when they went to Balamban supposedly for a tour and a beach camping event.
He said that the hospital had nothing to do with the tour to celebrate Iran’s Independence Day.
Sad news indeed. These souls are now in eternity. I do not believe the number ‘666’ has anything to do with what happened.
/heavy sarc
Hey, Maiden is still around!
They just did a world tour in 2008 where Bruce (the vocalist) piloted the the tour plane.
666 or VI VI VI or DCLXVI?
The bus was new..second time it was rented.
They’re touring this year and next year, and putting out a new album in August.
Yep. I wish I could have seen the last tour, since it was all their classic material. I’ve never seen them live, but I really wanted to back in 1985. I was only 9 though, and my mom really didn’t go for that plan.
I saw them two years ago and got VIP box seats to see them again in Seattle coming up next week.
Last show was one of the best of their’s I’ve ever seen. Bruce’s voice still sounds incredible.
Up the Irons!!!
I suppose I don’t need to tell any of this to a guy who calls himself wastedyears!
Not to sound like I’m gloating, but I’m the biggest Maiden fan I know. Got into them 8-9 years ago, own some stuff on vinyl, all studio CDs, and plenty of T-shirts.
I was a real big fan of their album covers in the classic years a a kid. I wasn’t actually allowed to listen to them, but I somehow convinced my mom to buy me a size 8 kids ‘Piece of Mind’ T-shirt at Mervyns (but I wasn’t allowed to have a ‘Killers’ shirt.) I recently got back into them after watching Flight 666 on VH1 Classic. And yeah, I finally got that ‘Killers’ shirt!
Makes a guy wonder sometimes.
Maybe they bought the bus used? Also, the regular driver did not drive it. The company owner did. Maybe he did not know what he was doing.
I hope there is not too much correlation with a crash and 666 on a license plate. My nephew is going to be getting married in a church with a street address of 666. I’m just going to blithely assume that it does not have a greater divorce rate per marriages performed than churches with different street addresses.
That’s kind of ironic, a church with a street address of 666.
THX FOR THE PINGS.
EVEN IN 1973 . . . MANY BUSSES AND TAXIS IN JERUSALEM HAD 666 ON THEM.
December first I will be sixty six years and six months old. I considered trying to get up to six hundred and sixty six pounds but I can’t afford the food bills. If I was a couple inches taller I would be six feet and six inches and...oh, never mind, someone once told me I was too tall and too short, I just now figured out what that means.
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