A pickup truck transporting wedding attendees was pinned between two larger trucks on a crowded highway on Java, Indonesia’s main island, leaving 13 people dead and five others injured, police said Monday.
The collision happened Sunday afternoon along the northern coastal highway near Kiajaran Kulon village in Indramayu regency, as the passengers were heading home after a wedding in nearby Parean village, local traffic police chief Undang Syarif Hidayat said.
Hidayat said the group had been riding in the open bed of the pickup when it slowed and came to a stop near a break in the median, apparently preparing to make a U-turn, before a wing-box truck moving in the same direction slammed into it from behind.
“The impact pushed the pickup into the opposite lane where it was hit again by another truck,” Hidayat said.
“The powerful collision hurled more than a dozen people from the pickup truck onto the highway.”
Police said the five people who survived were still being treated in hospital for injuries ranging from minor to severe.
Investigators are working to determine what led to the crash.
Fatal road accidents occur frequently in Indonesia, where overcrowded vehicles, limited road safety safeguards and weak adherence to traffic laws often play a role in deadly collisions.
