Indonesia charges train driver over April crash that killed 16 women
JAKARTA, Sept 29 — Indonesian police charged a train driver Tuesday with allegedly failing to hit the brakes in ti...
The Indonesian police have formally charged a train driver with allegedly not applying the brakes in time to avert a disaster that claimed the lives of 16 women near Jakarta in April, according to a police official. On April 28, a long-distance train collided with a women-only carriage at the rear of a stationary commuter train near Bekasi Timur station, approximately 20 kilometers west of the capital.
Rescue crews labored for hours to extricate passengers from the mangled carriages. The 37-year-old long-distance train driver now faces multiple charges following an investigation that determined he engaged the brakes too close to the stalled commuter train. Police official I Dewa Putu Gede Anom Danujaya stated that investigators concluded the emergency braking action could have been executed further away from the stationary train.
The maximum sentence for the driver, should he be found guilty, is 12 years in prison, according to Dewa.
The incident resulted in the deaths of 16 passengers within the women-only carriage, a designated section on Indonesian trains to protect women from sexual harassment during travel. Additionally, 107 individuals sustained injuries, as reported by the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT). The committee's report attributed the crash to a combination of factors, including signaling and communication system malfunctions.
The driver remains at large, not under arrest. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago nation, frequently experiences transport accidents due to the prevalence of aging and subpar public transportation infrastructure, as reported by AFP.
Written by urgent.news from Malay Mail's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
