5 hurt in collision
5 hurt in collision.
FIVE people were hurt, three of them seriously, in a chain collision of five heavy vehicles yesterday afternoon.
It happened in heavy rain along the Kranji Expressway. On the northbound expressway, traffic tailed back for at least 5 km.
From the flyover above, about 50 curious onlookers craned their necks to watch the Singapore Civil Defence Force rescuers in action.
The accident happened at around 3 pm, apparently after a lorry carrying computer products stopped in the expressway's extreme left lane under the Choa Chu Kang Road flyover.
A bus that ferries factory workers hit the lorry, and then three more lorries piled in.
One lorry belongs to Ascent Logistics. The second was a Malaysian-registered trailer, and the last was an empty diesel truck, a 10-wheeler registered to Ming Hup Trading Co.
Two people were pinned inside the cab of the 10-wheeler.
Rescuers used a device called the Jaws of Life to pry open the twisted metal. The device works like a huge pair of pliers in reverse.
The diesel had just been unloaded in Tuas.
The driver of the empty Ascent Logistics lorry was also rescued the same way.
All three were taken to the National University Hospital in serious condition, a Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman said yesterday.
Two others were treated as outpatients.
Yesterday, soon after the mishap, the driver of the factory bus, Mr Sim Koon Lin, 26, and a co-driver of the trailer lorry told The Straits Times what happened.
Mr Sim said that to avoid the lorry that had stopped under the flyover, he tried to get into the next lane.
He said: "But there was traffic so I could not cut out. The next thing I heard was bang, bang, bang.
"It was raining heavily so it was hard to judge the distance."
Mr Azhari Mohamed, 21, who was next to Mr Abdul Rashid Main, 32, the driver of the trailer lorry, said he was stunned because it all happened so fast.
He said in Malay: "The driver had no time to react. We all could not brake in time."
Police are asking eyewitnesses to contact the Traffic Division on 222-2233.
(c) 1999 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
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