Coffins ready for victims

 By ELIAS LARI

TWENTY-five coffins have been built and prepared for the burial of victims of a fatal road accident in Baiyer, Western Highlands, early this month.

The coffins were bought by local MP Koi Trappe from Paka Funeral Supplies at Newtown in Mt Hagen.

Paka Funeral Supplies owner George Kalg thanked Trappe for assisting the grieving families by providing the coffins.

He said seven coffins were for community leaders, 16 for the other adults and two coffins were for the two children killed in the accident.

He said his company also helped each family by providing the coffins with mattresses, perfume and plastic flowers.

“I was saddened and also it is my very first time to make such a large number of coffin boxes at one time,” Kalg told The National last Friday.

He said Trappe had made wise decisions to help the families and relatives of those who had died.

The road accident on April 3 was one of the worst in the province.

Twenty-four people died instantly while another died the next day after admitted at the Mt Hagen Provincial Hospital.

They were travelling on a PMV bus when it ran off the road and plunged 50m down a cliff near Murip village in Baiyer.

Of those killed were 17 men, six women, one of whom was pregnant and two children. 

Two women and two men sustained injuries and are fighting for their lives at the hospital.

The victims were all from the Epilka tribe in Baiyer.