HÀ NỘI (VNS) — The Bình Thuận Police announced they had completed DNA testing on all the fatalities of the horrific bus crash that occurred in central Bình Thuận Province on Sunday.

Lieutenant-colonel Phan Thế Nam, head of the Informatics Centre of Bình Thuận Police, this morning said they were waiting for family members of the victims to check the DNA test results.

Once the victims were identified, their bodies would be given to the families, he said.

Until yesterday, only two of the 13 fatalities had been identified.

DNA samples of the other deceased were taken for testing due to the severity of the burns, according to the local forensic examination agency.

The two bodies that were identified – a driver who was thrown out of the truck and a 71-year-old woman whose face was not burned – were given to the families last night so that funerals could be conducted.

At 4 am yesterday morning, two passenger coaches were struck by a truck and were engulfed in flames on a section of National Highway 1A that crosses Thuận Nam Town in Hàm Thuận Nam Commune. The accident killed 13 people and left 35 others with severe burn injuries. The two coaches were completely destroyed in the fire and the driver’s compartment of the truck was also destroyed.

One of the coaches was a sleeper bus owned by Phương Trang – a well-known transport company in southern Việt Nam. The sleeper bus was on route from Quảng Ngãi Province to HCM City. The other coach involved in the accident was traveling from HCM City to Quảng Ngãi Province.

The crash led to a three-hour traffic jam on the highway, although traffic returned to normal by about 7am. — VNS