A bus carrying students and teachers returning from a graduation celebration crashed in Subang, Indonesia, on Saturday night, killing at least 11 people, many of them students.
The accident occurred at around 6:45 pm when the vehicle was returning from a mountainous tourist area in Bandung to Depok, West Java, authorities said.
While the cause of the accident was still under investigation on Sunday, West Java police said the bus had gone out of control on a downhill road and collided with several vehicles. An initial investigation revealed that the bus was apparently not roadworthy and had defective brakes.
There were 61 passengers on board, according to police, who said nine people died at the scene and two died later at a hospital.
Among the dead were several students, a teacher and a motorcyclist. Dozens more people were injured and hospitalized, some in critical condition.
Eighteen surgeries have been carried out so far for serious injuries, a West Java police commissioner said at a news conference on Sunday.
A local television broadcast showed video showing the bus overturned with its windows broken and the frame badly battered.
Traffic accidents with multiple fatalities are not uncommon in Indonesia, where mountainous terrain and inadequate road lighting lead to dangerous driving conditions that lead to frequent accidents.
Three years ago, a bus accident killed 29 people, including high school students returning home from a school trip. Police investigations cited defective brakes in that accident. In 2019, another bus accident killed 35 people when the vehicle fell into a 262-foot ravine.