The last thing anyone expected to hear on Thursday evening, particularly Choiseul residents was that a bus filled with people had plummeted off the edge of a precipice in the Morne Seon area straight onto the beach. Moments after the horrific crash frantic messages flew back and forth over Blackberry and other social networks with the unbelievable news.
According to police reports the accident occurred at about 7:45pm on Thursday, November 10 and resulted in the death of sixteen persons all from the community of Dugard, Micoud. The 14-seater Toyota minivan being driven by 47-year-old Michael Alexander of Micoud was traveling in the direction of Choiseul village from the community of Delcer, Choiseul, when it ran off the road.
When the STAR arrived to the scene on Friday morning residents described the nightmarish scene the night before. It had been no easy task to get onto the beach itself and people grabbed onto each other so no one slipped off the rocks as the waves crashed in. At that point it was clear how difficult it might have been to maneuver the rocks in the dark as some residents had done in order to try to help in any way they could.
The beach was filled with curious onlookers all wishing to get a better view of the vehicle in broad daylight and though most of the bodies had been taken away the somber mood remained. The mangled light blue metal on the shoreline didn’t for one second resemble a minivan. As this reporter took in the scene the hushed conversations of onlookers said there was something else that needed to be checked out. Just that morning at about 6:30am the body of a 12-year-old girl had been recovered at sea by an elderly man in the area and her body still lay covered just yards away from the wrecked van. There was also talk of a missing baby, yet as two female residents expressed, “God is good.” Both were holding onto faith that the child would be found.
Read more in Saturday’s STAR, interviews with family members of the victims!
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