"At least 25 killed in Brazil double collision"

" BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- A truck coming down a hill plowed into rescue workers and gawkers at the site of an earlier collision -- a double accident that killed least 25 people and injured 87, police said Wednesday.

The first crash occurred when one truck tried to pass another on a curve and smashed into an oncoming bus with about 20 people aboard, said highway police spokesman Adrian Fiamoncini. Six people on the bus and the truck driver were killed.

"It was a serious accident, but everything was under control," Fiamoncini said. But about 90 minutes later, "all of a sudden, for no reason another truck arrived and ran everybody over, firefighters, police, people who stopped at the scene," Fiamoncini said.

He said it was still unclear why the other truck failed to stop but said it might have lost its brakes.

The second accident killed 18 people, including three firefighters and a policeman, he said. The driver of the second truck was hospitalized under police custody.

Fiamoncini said many of the injured remained in serious condition and that rescue workers were looking for other victims."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/10/10/brazil.accident.ap/index.html


This article is frankly astonishing. I don't know how it's possible for one truck to kill 18 people and injure about 67 in the blink of an eye. The article said that the first collision killed 6, which is a lot of people, and then that number triples? Wow.

It said that 87 people were injured. How is that possible? There were 14 people on the bus who were injured, meaning that 73 people were hit in the crowd. How does that happen? "He said it was still unclear why the other truck failed to stop but said it might have lost its brakes." How do you look away from the road and let your truck plow into a crowd of people. If your brakes went out, wouldn't you turn your truck to hit a wall, or a car or anything other than a bunch of people. And above it all, the driver who hit all the people is just in the hospital, he didn't even die. I don't know what to think.