Along notorious curve, horrific bus crash shatters dreamy Benguet stillness

The 5th-class municipality of Sablan, well-known for its sweet banana varieties and tiger-grass brooms, is usually quiet, almost dreamy. In the cold morning of August 18, however, the town’s stillness was shattered by yet another tragic crash off a notoriously deadly curve of the zig-zag Naguilian Road. A small Eso-Nice bus plunged into a 100-foot-deep ravine in Banangan village along the thoroughfare that connects Baguio and nearby towns of Benguet to the Ilocos coast. Leonor Galawa – a resident of the village whose house was almost hit by the careening bus – recalled how she heard an unusual sound of what seemed like people moaning. “May umuungol kasi diyan, akala ko sa kabila, akala ko itong sasakyan. ‘Nung lumabas ako, may tumatakbo din sa taas. Sabi ko, ano ‘yun, bus?" Galawa told GMA News. (I heard moaning sounds there, I thought it was from the other house, or from this car. When I went out, something was running above me. I thought, what’s that, a bus?) Galawa was lucky that the minibus didn’t slam directly into her house, but merely tore up her roof. 42 passengers killed But the bus passengers were not fortunate. As Wednesday drew to a close, local police said they already counted 42 fatalities, including two children and an infant. It was a Wednesday morning, which meant that most of the passengers must have been Benguet folk going down to La Union to follow up papers or to do business, apart from the occasional off-season tourists headed for the famed Ilocos beaches. Among those killed, according to reports, were four Americans of Filipino ancestry, all members of the same family, and an Indian national. Another passenger, a pregnant woman and the six-month-old baby in her womb, also did not survive the deadly crash.
The Eso-Nice minibus came from the highland resort city of Baguio City with 47 passengers, and was winding through the zigzag mountain road that leads to the coastal towns of La Union, when the driver reportedly lost control while negotiating a section known for its blind turns. As GMA News recounted the harrowing post-accident scene, some 500 volunteers conducted rescue operations through thick vegetation and boulders of solid rock, hoping that there were other survivors. At first they shouted to the crash victims, but getting no response, the rescuers decided to climb down into the dangerously steep ravine. “Yung impact kasi ng tao sa likod, pumunta lahat sa harap. Pati ‘yung mga upuan, umabante (You see, the impact of the human load at the back all went to the front. Even the seats were torn forward)," explained Paeng Valencia, the rescue team’s leader. The body of a woman took at least five hours to be retrieved, as it was pinned down under a pile of wreckage, baggage, and other dead and dying passengers. Rescuers admitted it was one of the most difficult operations they have undertaken, as they had to use a crane with a harness to pull out the crash victims. The majority of the passengers, when they were extracted from the wreckage, were already lifeless. Memories of tragedy In an instant, Sablan communities in the vicinity recalled a similarly gruesome crash that happened more than a decade ago along that very same curve of the road. In January 1999, a bus also fell into the ravine, killing 30 people and injuring 19 others. According to a GMA News report, at least three other major vehicular mishaps in recent memory were recorded along Naguilian highway. The majority of the bodies of the Eso-Nice crash have been identified, but police are still looking for the identification of 15 others from the assorted pieces of baggage — some of which were retrieved by the local police, while others remained among the wreckage of the ill-fated bus. Most of the bodies have been brought to La Funeraria Paz in Baguio City. Relatives and friends of the victims, still in shock and disbelief, are asking obvious but painful questions of why the accident happened. After all, the same fate could have befallen anyone who rode the same buses, dozens of which ply that route daily. The police, transport agencies and local officials are trying to pick up the pieces of a recurring fatal puzzle, and again offering oft-raised suggestions about improved road safety. Meanwhile, another set of victims’ kinfolk grieve — some weep silently, others wail inconsolably — over their sudden and most painful loss of loved ones.—JV, HS, GMANews.TV