MORE than 60 bus passengers leapt through windows to safety after their bus caught fire at Nadi.
The incident was published in this newspaper on Wednesday April 19, 1989.
All passengers, several of them students in the K. Ram Dass Transport bus travelling from Votualevu to Nadi, escaped injury.
One of them, a senior physics and maths teacher Mark Griffiths of Nadi Muslim College said the floor of the bus started getting warm. He felt the warmth through the soles of his shoes.
Mr Griffiths said he saw the people around him shuffling in their seats.
He also saw black smoke coming through the gearbox and noticed that the driver was not aware of it, he said.
A passenger grabbed the driver by his shoulder and showed him the smoke.
The driver then pulled to the side of the road.
People in the bus started screaming and some of them panicked, Mr Griffiths said.
A Form 6 student at Nadi Muslim College, Akosita Tinai said, “I don’t know what happened. I saw people jumping out of the windows and I also jumped out.
“This is the first time something like this happened to me and I was very scared,” she said.
Mr Griffiths said there was a frail old woman on the bus.
She was the last passenger to get off the bus and was helped by the driver and four other men.
The driver stayed on the bus until everyone had gotten out, Mr Griffiths said.
As soon as the driver got out, the bus was filled with thick black smoke and caught fire.
“If we were on the bus a little while longer, I’m sure most of us would have been hurt,” he said.
K. Ram Dass Transport buses were ordered off the road by the Transport Control Board in early 1989.
The acting divisional transport officer Western, Sheik Mustaq said the suspension of five buses had been lifted.
The top half of the bus was charred. It was later towed by a tractor to a garage on Northern Press Road in Martintar, Nadi.
When approached, the owner of the bus refused to comment.
