DWU students in highway crash

By GABRIEL LAHOC
A FINAL year student at the Divine Word University has died, while three other students were critically injured after the PMV bus they were travelling in veered out of control near Water-rais and crashed last Sunday.
Reports said the deceased, believed to be from East New Britain, was a business management student who was travelling back after semester break when the accident happened.
He was pronounced dead on Monday in Lae, while a second-year female business studies student, a first-year rural health student and a second-year mathematics and science were understood to be in critical condition at the Angau Memorial Hospital.
The three injured were believed to be from the Jiwaka region,Western Highlands.
The student who died was returning from Goroka after visiting his mother.
It could not be confirmed if one of the injured, who was initially reported to have been rushed to Ramu clinic at Gusap, had been transferred to Lae.
Members of the school administration were in Lae with relatives of the surviving students.
In Madang, DWU students and staff are praying for the recovery of the survivors, with an appeal sent out to the campus community to contribute financially to help the affected students and their families.
The crash was the latest road accident contributing to the increasing fatalities on the Markham valley stretch of the Highlands Highway, and occurred a few kilometres from the scene of the nation’s worst road accident at Ragiampum village last year where two 25-seater buses collided, resulting in most of the passengers dying.