Manila: At least 20 people were confirmed killed, including a one-year-old child, while several dozens of others were injured in a multi-vehicle smash up before dawn on Saturday.
Carnage marked the accident scene in Santa Catalina village as blood and mangled bodies littered the crash site in Atimonan town, some 160 kilometres South of Manila in Quezon province.
According a National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council report, the tragedy took place around 1 am when a delivery van travelling downhill during a heavy downpour slammed the rear end of Superlines bus heading for Capalonga, Camarines Norte.
The Superlines bus and delivery van both went out of control, hitting other vehicles travelling slower on the opposite lane.
The vehicles were negotiating a mountainous, zig-zag stretch of the Maharlika Highway. Aside from the Superlines bus and the delivery truck, others involved in the collision were an Isarog Lines passenger bus, two other trucks, a cargo trailer and a jeep.
Twenty died from the collision while some 50 others were injured.
Some of the victims, especially the children, where thrown clear off the bus due to the strong impact resulting form the collision.
A report by the Bombo Radyo Naga station quoted Chief Inspector Jonar Yupio, provincial police chief of Atimonan as saying that the driver of the Super Lines, identified as Albert Talento-Nava, 48, had been detained while an investigation into the accident is on going.
Most of the victims aboard the Super Lines are residents of Capalonga town in Camarines Norte province as well as Atimonan.
The surviving victims are now undergoing treatment at various hospitals in the Quezon towns of Gumaca and Pagbilao towns and Lucena City.
The Super Lines Bus had left its terminal in Quezon City for Capalonga for the six-hour travel to Manila before midnight.
The presidential palace, for its part, expressed sympathy with the families of the victims.
Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte, in her regular Saturday radio interview, said President Benigno Aquino III had issued orders to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to conduct an investigation into the tragedy.
Philippine highways are notoriously dangerous.
Every year, dozens of lives are lost in road accidents involving collisions and other mishaps such as sideswiping. There had been attempts to enforce strict issuance licences to drivers of public transport, this efforts were soon forgotten by land transport regulators as soon as the outrage temper down.
