Oh sh*t, the bus is on fire!

For us to get from Kota Kinabau to Sandkan, we had to take a six hour bus. However, our journey took a lot longer than planned. The reason why? Some drunken idiot decided to light up a cigarette in the bus toilet! We’re not entirely sure what happened, as it all happened pretty quickly. However, we were half way through our journey when passengers behind us started to panic and yell, “fire fire!” After those words, we were pushed out of the bus. We then stood and watched the bus (and our backpacks) burn right in front of our eyes!

The most eye opening part of the whole event were people’s reactions. At first we couldn’t get off the bus quickly. There was an elderly lady infront of me who struggled leaving the vehicle. People behind me were pushing and despite explaining that I couldn’t move, they still kept on pushing forward. I now understand how people get trampled in similar situations. I guess people’s fight or flight mentality kicks in and, flight wins – no matter who’s in the way!

The strangest thing I noticed was how so many people just stood around watching the bus burn. If that bus was to explode (which it didn’t) a lot of people would have been injured. Thankfully there were no injuries, as the emergency services took over one hour to arrive! By this time it was too late, there was nothing left apart from a shell of the bus!