By Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia
02:33 12 Jun 2023, updated 02:33 12 Jun 2023
- Greta bus crash is worst in Australia since 1994
- Worst road accident was at Kempsey in 1989
The Greta bus crash in which ten wedding guests were killed in the NSW Hunter Valley is the worst road disaster in Australia for almost 30 years.
A coach carrying 39 passengers travelling from the Wandin Estate winery rolled at a roundabout on Wine Country Drive at Greta about 11.30pm on Sunday.
At least ten people were killed and 25 others suffering serious injuries taken to hospitals including John Hunter in Newcastle and Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney.
The 58-year-old bus driver was also taken to hospital for assessment and is under arrest at Cessnock police station as police consider laying charges. All of Australia’s road disasters in which ten or more people have been killed have involved buses.
Twelve passengers were killed and dozens injured when a bus carrying war widows rolled on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in suburban Brisbane on October 24, 1994.
The group had been travelling from Maryborough on Queensland’s Fraser Coast for a day’s shopping at the Logan Hyperdome.
A coronial inquest found that welding on a steering control rod had broken and the bus made a sudden right-hand turn across the road.
Eleven people were killed and 38 injured when a bus carrying mostly senior citizens from Newcastle slipped over an embankment at Mount Tamborine in south-east Queensland on September 25, 1990.
The tour bus rolled near the intersection of Henri Roberts Drive and King Parrot Court and came to rest against a large gum tree.
The cause of the crash was not established but heavy vehicles were subsequently banned from using the route.
The two worst road disasters in Australian history occurred within eight weeks of each other, killing 56 people in late 1989.
The Grafton bush crash killed 21 and injured 22 when a semi-trailer veered onto the wrong side of the Pacific Highway in northern NSW and collided with a Sunliner Express on October 20.
An inquest established both vehicles had been travelling above the speed limit on an undivided road that was only 6m wide.
At the time, it was the worst crash in the country’s road transport history in terms of lives lost.
On December 22 that year, two full tourist coaches collided head-on on the Pacific Highway at Clybucca Flat, 12km north of Kempsey on the NSW mid-north coast.
What became known as the Grafton bus crash killed 35 passengers and injured 41. It remains the worst road accident in Australia.
A coronial inquest found the driver of one coach had fallen asleep at the wheel. Neither bus was speeding and no mechanical faults were found.
The Kempsey and Grafton crashes resulted in recommendations the Pacific Highway be upgraded to dual carriageway between Newcastle and the Queensland.
Ten people were killed when a semi-trailer collided with a bus at Wangaratta in north-east Victoria on November 2, 1993.
All those who died were members of the Anglo-Indian Association and were on their way to Corowa on the NSW side of the Murray River for a Melbourne Cup Day outgoing.
Police fear there may be more dead passengers on the bus that crashed at Greta.
The bodies of those who have died have not yet been removed from the scene where the bus is still lying on its side.
7News reported the death toll ‘would likely’ climb to as high as 15.