16 Mar 2009

Investigations into Fiji bus fire on going

6:41 am on 16 March 2009

Fiji's Land Transport Authority is still investigating the seventh bus fire to take place in the last two years.

About 60 passengers were evacuated from a bus coming from a rural village to to Lautoka after the front of their bus caught fire.

No one was hurt.

The Manager of Standards and Compliance at the Authority, Naisa Tuinateva says it's now completed its examination of the bus.

He says there's a number of factors that contributed to the bus fire.

"We can not actually rule out the electrical fault caused by excesses heat coming from the engine and we cannot rule out that due to some very poor workmanship, you know on the bus engine and so forth.... they are all factors that could have contributed to this."

Naisa Tuinateva says it plans to release the report next week.

Last year, 13 people were killed in the country's worst bus fire near Sigatoka.