Jakarta, May 1 (EFE).- At least four people were killed and two injured on Friday when a train collided with a minibus on the island of Java, marking the second deadly rail accident in Indonesia in less than a week.
The crash occurred at 2:52 a.m. local time (19:52 GMT Thursday) under low-visibility conditions due to fog, traffic official Eko Ari Kisworo said in a statement.
The minibus, carrying nine people and traveling toward northern Central Java, was struck by a train moving from west to east.
“The force of the impact threw the vehicle about 20 meters before it hit a telecommunications pole and fell into rice fields south of the tracks,” Kisworo said, according to local news agency Antara.
The incident comes just days after a collision near Jakarta killed 15 women and injured around 90 others.
That accident occurred on Monday night when a commuter train, carrying a women-only carriage introduced as part of anti-harassment measures, was rear-ended by a long-distance train after stopping on the tracks, reportedly due to a taxi obstructing the line.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has invested heavily in rail infrastructure in recent years. In 2023, it launched its first high-speed rail line linking Jakarta and Bandung. EFE
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