Photo/Illutration A bus was pushed up a slope after being rear-ended by a large truck on the shoulder of the Tohoku Expressway in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, on May 17. (Atsushi Hara)

KURIHARA, Miyagi Prefecture--Two Nepalese students and a bus driver were killed when a large truck rear-ended their vehicle that had stopped on the shoulder of the Tohoku Expressway here because of engine trouble, police said.

The bus driver, Emi Sato, 56, who was president of a taxi and bus company, and the two students were checking the condition of the engine when the truck slammed into the bus from behind, according to Miyagi prefectural police.

The truck driver, a 30-year-old employee of a transportation company, was seriously injured in the accident.

Forty-one people were aboard the bus, but they all had gotten off the vehicle, police said.

The 40 passengers--39 students from Nepal and one from Bangladesh--were traveling from the Miyagi prefectural capital of Sendai to Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, for their part-time jobs at a factory of Lixil Corp., a manufacturer of housing equipment, according to police.

The truck was transporting frozen food to Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, police said.

The transport ministry’s Tohoku transportation bureau on May 17 began special audits of the companies related to both the bus and the truck.

The committee for business vehicle accidents also started an investigation.

ASPIRING AUTO TECHNICIAN

One of the deceased Nepalese students was in his 20s and had started attending an automotive technical college in Sendai in spring. He wanted to obtain a national qualification as an automobile technician.

Those who knew him said he was studying in Japan at his own expense, and he worked part-time at night after his classes ended at 4 p.m.

“There’s no other word for it but heartbreaking,” the school’s administrator, 65, said. “He had just started school to improve his skills. I’d like to know what exactly happened.”

The school said it is checking if any other of its students were involved in the accident.

The 40 foreign students on the bus were dispatched to the factory through staffing agencies, a Lixil public relations official said.

The factory makes windows, and the students have been assembling window frames there.

They work about three times a week, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., with a one-hour break, the official said.

“Support for the families of those who have died is being provided by the staffing agencies, but we will provide as much support as possible,” the Lixil said.

(This article was written by Arata Mitsui and Doni Tani.)

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