A Shameful and Bloody Transport History
THE TRAGIC accident on Sunday March 5, which claimed 18 lives was the fourth major disaster in Panama’s, bloody transportation history.
Topping the list was the death of 38 passengers on Monday, May 24, 1971, when a bus on the La Chorrera-Panama route with 43 passengers plunged from the Bridge of the Americas. 38 people died. The bus dropped into the area of Balboa’s oil depots.
On August 13, 2009, a bus on the Las Garzas-La Dona route collided with a dump truck in Pacora killing 25 people among them, the bus driver and his two children while 15 passengers were injured.
Five years later On October 23, 2006 bus 8B on the Mano de Piedra route caught fire on Martin Sosa Avenue in the Cresta district of Panama City, incinerating 18 people, including children, and leaving 25 more with disfiguring burns.
There was no functioning emergency exit and trapped screaming passengers were unable to open windows.
The owner/operators of the bus got short prison terms, but the survivors and relatives of the dead are still without compensation.
Every year they go to the site of the event and paint 18 hearts on the road, while authorities pay lip service and move on.
Sandwiched in between the high profile events have been hundreds of deaths involving diablo rojos (converted US school buses) and today’s current predators pirate busitos.
The latest tragedy brought Panama’s grim road carnage in the first 64 days of the year to 85.
