3 Japanese killed as tour bus crashes in Utah+

CEDAR CITY, Utah, Aug. 11 Kyodo -
A bus carrying 14 Japanese tourists rolled off a highway in southern Utah on
Monday evening, instantly killing three of them who were ejected from the
vehicle and seriously injuring seven other passengers, local police said
Tuesday.
The three fatalities were Hiroki Hayase, a 20-year-old man from Osaka
Prefecture, and a 38-year-old man and 40-year-old woman from Tokyo whose names
are being withheld until their families have been informed, according to the
Utah Department of Public Safety.
Sources with knowledge of the matter told Kyodo News that the man and woman
from Tokyo who died in the accident were Junji Hoshino and Junko Hoshino.
Family members of the victims left Japan for Utah on Wednesday.
The police have indicated, based on witness accounts, that the vehicle's
driver, a 26-year-old Japanese resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, whose name is
also being withheld, may have fallen asleep at the wheel before the crash.
A local police official told Kyodo News that prosecutors are considering
charges against the driver.
The small bus, registered to a transportation company in Salt Lake City, Utah,
crashed 4 miles north of Cedar City en route from Las Vegas to Bryce Canyon
National Park, a popular tourist destination, the local police said.
The seven seriously injured people were taken to three different hospitals in
Salt Lake City, according to the state public safety department.
They were identified as Tomoko Mizutani, 27, Emiko Mizutani, 27, Akemi Hayase,
46, Mariko Hayase, 14, Kei Maeda, 29, Mai Hatta, 29, and Yoichi Aizaki, 60.
The remaining four passengers and the driver suffered minor injuries and were
sent to hospitals in Cedar City. Officials of the hospitals said later without
elaborating that three of them were in stable condition and two of them,
including the driver, were discharged.
The bus crashed into the central divider of the highway around 6:40 p.m. Monday
before rolling off the road. Pictures taken by the local media show that the
bus had rolled completely over and was totaled.
Only one vehicle was involved in the crash, which occurred on a straight road
with good visibility, and there were no signs of braking, according to the
police.
At a news conference, a Utah state police official said the driver told the
police that he does not remember anything about the time when the accident
occurred.
Among the 14 Japanese tourists, eight were traveling in a group tour organized
by Nippon Travel Agency Co., four were clients of major travel agency H.I.S.
Co. and the remaining two were Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. customers, according to
the agencies.
The tourists departed from Narita airport Sunday and were to return to Japan in
about a week. The travel agencies consigned the round-trip tour from Las Vegas
to other sightseeing spots around there to a tour company in Utah.
Nippon Travel Agency said that all three of the fatalities were among its eight
clients, aged between 14 and 52. The other five are two people from Aichi
Prefecture and three people from Osaka Prefecture.
''This is truly heartbreaking,'' Nippon Travel Agency President Kazuaki Maruo
said at a press conference Tuesday evening in Tokyo. ''We feel very sorry'' for
what happened in Utah, he said.
H.I.S. said its four clients are a man from Kagawa Prefecture, two women from
Aichi Prefecture and a woman from Kanagawa Prefecture, all in their 20s.
Kinki Nippon Tourist said its clients are a 60-year-old man and a 53-year-old
woman, both from Kanagawa Prefecture and believed to be related.
==Kyodo
2010-08-11 21:55:46