At least five people were confirmed killed and up to 26 injured when a coach taking pilgrims for Umrah in Saudi Arabia went out of control and crashed on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway. Among the dead was the Saudi Arabian coach driver. The others were all UAE nationals. The Abu Dhabi police reported that five people, including four UAE nationals, died and 26 were injured. Abu Dhabi police said the bus collided with the rear left hand side of a truck which was stationary on the hard shoulder of the road. The crash caused the bus to swerve across the highway towards the central reservation where it collided with a private Dubai-registered car. The bus then went over the central reservation before coming to a halt after crossing the Abu Dhabi to Dubai carriageway. Dubai police said the accident happened when the coach tried to overtake a car near the Ghantout Racing and Polo Club, but was forced to cut back into the nearside lane where it collided with the lorry.
Other important events
1778 English navigator Captain James Cook discovers the Hawaiian Islands.
1866 Wesley College is established in Melbourne, Australia.
1896 The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time.
1911 The first landing of an aircraft on a ship takes place as pilot Eugene B. Ely flies on to the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbour.
1919 Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.
1960 US and Japan sign joint defence treaty.
1968 US and Soviet Union agree on draft treaty to control nuclear weapons.
1974 Egypt and Israel sign the Sinai Separation of Forces Agreement.
1977 Australia’s worst rail crash, at Granville, Sydney, kills 83.
1984 President of the American University of Beirut, Dr Malcolm Kerr, is gunned down outside his office in Lebanon.
1988 Ronnie de Mel, Sri Lanka’s longest serving finance minister resigns.
1992 More than 100,000 people attend Kenya’s first legal anti-government rally in 22 years.
1997 Norwegian explorer Borge Ousland becomes the first person to walk across Antarctica
alone and unaided.
1998 Senior Iraqi diplomat Hekmat Al Hejju is stabbed to death in Amman, Jordan.
2000 Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary chairman of the Christian Democratic Union.
2001 At least five people are killed and up to 26 injured when a coach carrying pilgrims crashes on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway.
2002 The Sierra Leone government declares the country’s 11-year-old civil war over.
2005 The world’s largest commercial jet, an Airbus A380 is unveiled in Toulouse, France.
2007 A fire engulf a high-rise building Fortune Tower under construction off Shaikh Zayed Road, Dubai, kills four workers.
2008 Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius, dies at the age of 64.
2009 Israeli troops begin to withdraw from Gaza.
2012 Kodak files for bankruptcy protection, become the most storied casualty of a digital age.
2013 Former cycling champion Lance Armstrong admits that he had used performance-enhancing drugs and lied about it during the first part of his interview with Oprah Winfrey.
2014 An Iranian diplomat Ali Asghar Assadi is killed in a drive-by shooting outside the ambassador’s residence in Sana’a, Yemen.
2015 South African cricketer AB De Villiers scores the fastest century in the history of One Day International by reaching in 31 balls against West Indies.
