BENTONG: Twenty nine passengers and the driver of an express bus cheated death when the vehicle they were travelling in caught fire at Km 58 on the East Coast Expressway today.
Pahang Deputy Fire and Rescue deputy director Mohd Sani Harul said, in the 1.40 pm incident, the bus, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Raub was totally gutted by the fire.
He said eight personnel were dispatched from the Bentong Fire and Rescue Department and it took them some 16 minutes to reach the scene, which was located 39km from bentong.
“As soon as we reached the scene of the incident the fire had fully engulfed the bus and the vehicle was completely destroyed.
"However, all the passengers as well as the driver managed to escape and continued their journey to Raub in a replacement bus,” he said.
The operation to extinguish the fire ended at 2.25 pm.