SEBERANG PRAI: Many of the passengers of this morning's fatal bus crash near the Juru toll plaza were asleep at the moment of impact.
One of the survivors, Nur Shakira Ishak, 40, said she was asleep before being jolted by a loud crash.
"I woke up to absolute chaos inside the bus. Some people yelled out that the bus had rammed into another bus which had stopped on the road."
That was also when Nur Shakira found her best friend, Noriah Kasa, 40, lying motionless.
“Only then did I realise that my best friend had died,” she said when met at the Seberang Jaya Hospital today.
Nur Shakira said the factory bus had earlier fetched them from the homes in Parit Buntar to their workplace in Bayan Lepas.
Nur Shakira said Noriah was the only casualty inside her bus while the other seven casualties were from the other bus.
Eight factory workers were killed while 33 were injured in the mishap involving two factory buses at 5.30am today.
All the deceased are women.
It is understood that the accident occurred when one factory bus ploughed into another bus which had stopped along the left side of the stretch, near the northbound Juru toll plaza on the North South Expressway (NSE).