The Scotsman carried this report:

The Press Association

Sun 13 Nov 2005
Bus plunge adds to quake misery

A bus with 50 people on board plunged from a bridge into a river gorge in quake-stricken north-eastern Pakistan, killing at least three people, police said.

The bus fell several yards into the Neelum River at Ghori, about 10 miles from Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistan-controlled section of Kashmir, the reports said.

Three bodies have so far been pulled from the wreck, said Shahid Hassan Quereshi, a top Kashmiri police official.

Ghulam Ullah Azad, a spokesman for the Islamic charity Jamat-e-Dawad, said members of his group were the first on the scene and had begun pulling out bodies.

"We don't know whether there are any survivors," he said.

Azad said about 50 people had been travelling on the bus.

Quereshi said he didn't know how many were on board.

Muzaffarabad and its surroundings were devastated by the October 8 earthquake, which killed more than 86,000 people.

Many roads were blocked by landslides or disappeared over the sides of cliffs, making land travel in the area extremely dangerous.

Why Bus Plunges?

Here is the Wikipedia entry:

Bus plunge

A bus plunge is a phenomenon in news media, where whenever a passenger bus is involved in a mishap (typically involving injuries or fatalities, but not always), it is almost invariably described as having plunged into whatever it hit, or off of whatever it left. A change in elevation is not required for the term to be applied by a news writer.

On any given day, you can search the news with your favorite news search for "Bus Plunge", and you will find stories about buses that, well, 'plunged' into or off of things.

This is not to say that buses are any more dangerous than other motor vehicles, which crash, slide, bump, fall, roll, careen, plummet, etc. into things so routinely that around 48,000 people are killed and more than three million people are injured in all kinds of motor vehicles every year just in the United States. Buses just seem to be more prone to be described as having plunged than other vehicles.

I do collect bus plunges.

It certainly is an odd avocation, but it is hardly unique.

So did my younger brother, who even composed a song about them (called, oddly enough, "Bus Plunge").

The emotions involved are certainly not Schadenfreude, that most German of emotions. Nor are they at all ghoulish. It is closer to showing Death your Nelson Rockefeller "Mr. Finger Digit Puppet ".

There are web sites devoted to bus plunges.

Practically every newspaper printed in the English language has printed bus plunge articles. The Times of London. The Independent. The Irish Times. The list is seemingly endless.

Even the New York Times has bus plunges. Yes, The Paper of Record( in this country) has archives of bus plunges going back to 1926. Here are a few headlines. They always have the words "bus" and "plunge" linked together in the headline.

• 35 HURT WHEN BUS PLUNGES TO RIVER, Jul 5, 1926; pg. 2, 1
• 26 INJURED AS BUS PLUNGES INTO LAKE, May 31, 1928; pg. 27, 1
• BUS PLUNGE INJURES SIX FROM NEW YORK, Jan 21, 1935; pg. 5, 1
• MANY HURT AS BUS PLUNGES OFF ROAD, Jul 15, 1935; pg. 1, 2
• 14 DIE AS BUS PLUNGES INTO RIVER, Dec 23, 1935; pg. 1, 2

There is a haunting similarity running through bus plunges. Each article is just column filler, almost irrelevant in the electronic age, and so small, yet containing hints of unspeakable horrors. Every occasion seems to arise - funerals, weddings, vacations, or just plain business. No country is immune, although third world countries seem to bear the worst of the burden.

Twenty killed in bus plunge
TWENTY people were killed when a bus plunged into a ravine on a mountain pass in South Africa. Fourteen women and six children, including a three-year-old girl, were killed when the driver of the bus, licensed for 65 passengers but carrying 77, lost ...

Bus plunge kills 45 in Bangladesh
Rescue workers and divers searching for bodies in a partially submerged bus after it plunged off a bridge, killing 45 passengers and injuring 15 in Bangladesh yesterday. The bus was carrying workers and their families returning from holidays in the c...

70 feared killed in wedding bus plunge;India
Dhaka - At least 70 people are feared to have died when a bus carrying a wedding party plunged off a mountain road into the Karnafuli river in south-east Bangladesh. The bus was taking about 100 people to a wedding at the hill resort town of Kaptai, ...

60 injured in bus plunge / South Wales (133)
Women and children were among more than 60 people injured when a bus packed with shoppers crashed and plunged 60 feet down an embankment in a South Wales village yesterday. The double-decker bus was carrying about 70 passengers to a superstore in Lla...

Other vehicles plunge as well:

• trains
  12 dead in train plunge
  From correspondents in Padre Burgos, Philippines
  12nov04 AT LEAST 12 people were killed and about 160 injured when a train derailed in the dark and plunged down a slope in the Philippines early today, officials said.
  
  The Manila-bound Philippine National Railways train with about 400 people on board came off the rails at speed near this town 130km south east of the capital around 2.00am (5am AEDT), the civil defence office said.)
  

• jets

  Stewardess hurt in jet plunge

Dean Kirby

PLANE: An Air Transat Airbus, similar to the plunge plane.

AN air stewardess was injured when she fell from an plane as it prepared for take-off. She is thought to have been closing a rear door on an Air Transat jet when she plunged 20ft on to the concrete at Manchester Airport

• cars
  

  Bridget Fonda hurt in car plunge

  February 28 2003
  

  
  Actress Bridget Fonda was recovering in a Los Angeles hospital today after suffering head and neck injuries in a car crash.
  
  The Single White Female star was alone in the car, believed to be a new Jaguar, when it tumbled over an embankment on a rain-drenched section of the Pacific Coast Highway early yesterday morning, police said.
  

• trucks Thirteen killed in Iran truck plunge
  10/12/2004 - 15:04:10
  
  A pickup truck plunged into a river amid heavy rains in southern Iran today, killing 13 people, state-run radio reported.
  
  The truck, carrying 14 passengers, dived into the Dashtestan seasonal river in Bushehr province, the radio said without elaborating
  .

• and God knows what else

Cow’s suicide plunge destroys woman’s car A 36-year-old Austrian woman was injured when a cow fell on her car, landing on the hood. The cow had wandered onto a hillside near Salzburg and toppled off over the exit lanes of a tunnel as the woman’s car was emerging.

The cow was killed in the fall.

As I read the article from The Scotsman, I saw in a sidebar that one could search the archive - Every issue of The Scotsman from 1817 - 1950. And so I did. Here are a few images.

The Scotsman - 12th September 1927

The Scotsman - 23rd July 1930, page 14

The Scotsman - 13th September 1938, page 6







It seems to me that, as long as there have been buses, there have been bus plunges. Remarkable.

Plunge that!

You now of our ongoing interest in things that plunge.

The LA Fish Wrap asks

What is the bus-plunge story?

And, just in case you missed it, the Fish Wrap of Record exercised a great deal of restraint in reporting this bus plunge.

Another Plunge

This seems to be the day for plunges, but not of the bus plunge variety. This was reported in The Telegraph. I like the tasteful, low-keyed headline.

Woman, 34, impaled in hotel plunge

By Paul Anast in Athens
(Filed: 11/10/2006)

A British holidaymaker was fighting for her life last night after her boyfriend allegedly pushed her out of a second-floor window at their hotel on the Greek island of Crete.

Sarah Maskell was impaled on a pole, which pierced her leg and exited through her lungs, in a fall from her room in Malia on Monday.

The incident was witnessed by the British man's five-year-old son, believed to be from a previous marriage, police said.
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Miss Maskell was in a critical condition in hospital.

A man, believed to be Miss Maskell's 37-year-old boyfriend, was in custody after appearing in court to face attempted murder charges yesterday.

In a statement, police at Iraklio said that it appeared Miss Maskell had been hit and pushed in a "violent row".

another one for the plunge archives

I know a middle-aged woman isn't a vehicle, but the headline does include "plunge"...

Woman who takes fatal plunge from university building hits walking student

TOKYO - A woman who plunged from a university building in western Tokyo on Wednesday in an apparent suicide bid died after hitting a student walking on the campus, police said.

At about 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday, a 55-year-old unemployed woman fell from the University of Electro-Communications' building that houses laboratories in Chofu, and hit a 20-year-old female student who was walking on its premises, local police said.

The older woman died while the student suffered serious head injuries and was rushed to hospital.

A pair of sandals belonging to the woman who fell was left on the landing of an emergency stairway between the ninth and 10th floors, leading investigators to suspect that she committed suicide.

The student who was injured was on her way home after finishing preparations for an upcoming university festival, according to police. (Mainichi)

Cow Plunge!

Yes, we admit we have a fascination with things that plunge.

Reuters reports:

Cow plunges off cliff onto moving minivan
Wed Nov 7, 2007 8:17am EST
SPOKANE, Washington (Reuters) - A cow plunged from a 200-foot (61-metre) cliff onto the hood of a minivan on a highway in central Washington state, according to police.

The car's occupants, Charles and Linda Everson, were not hurt in Sunday's accident, but the cow was euthanized at the scene.

"If the cow had fallen a split second later, the animal would have landed right in their laps," said Jeff Middleton, criminal deputy of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department.

Middleton estimated the animal weighed 600 lbs (272 kilograms), or the average size of a mature cow. It had been missing for two days and wandered 5 miles from home near the popular Lake Chelan tourist area.

Bus Plunge!

Another bus plunge.

This AP report appeared in the International Fishwrap, The WaPo, and The Paper Of Record .

42 dead as bus plunges off mountain road in Nepal
The Associated Press
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2006
KATMANDU, Nepal At least 42 people were killed and another 45 wounded Saturday when an overcrowded bus plunged off a mountain road in western Nepal, police said.

The bus was traveling near the town of Tribeni, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the Nepalese capital, Katmandu, when it skidded off the road, plunging about 250 meters (950 feet) into a ravine bellow, said local police officer Birkha Bahadur Rawal.

Police are investigating the cause, he said adding that an initial probe indicated the driver may have lost control of the vehicle because it was overloaded with passengers.

Police did not yet know if the driver was among those who survived.

The bus was traveling toward the southern town of Dang when the accident occurred.

Among those killed, 32 died on the spot while eight died on the way to the hospital, Rawal said. Another two died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dang.

About a dozen more were in a critical condition and hospitalized at Nepalgunj, he said.

Police official Rawal said some of the passengers managed to jump and survived, indicating there were several people traveling on the roof, a common practice in rural Nepal where not much public transportation is available.

A bus ticket attendant who survived the crash, Jeevan Nepali, Told the Associated Press by mobile phone from his hospital bed that the bus was unable to pick up speed on the slopes and the driver stopped. It then rolled backward and off the road.

He said he and some of the passengers managed to jump off.

Deadly road accidents are common in Nepal, often caused by poor roads and aging overcrowded vehicles.

The POfR used the same wire service story and its supplied caption, but the entry in the index to "The World" section was tastefully re-written:

Bus plunge !

From the Irish Independent:

54 people dead after bus plunges off bridge in Tanzania

16:56 Friday June 9th 2006
A bus has plunged off a bridge in Tanzania killing fifty-four people.

Local police in the African country say the bus was overloaded, but it's unclear what caused the tragedy.

Previously:
Mexican tourist bus plunges off cliff
Bus Plunge

another one for the collection

A rare US plunge!

The headline doesn't contain the magic word, but look carefully into the lede:

Mexican tourist bus plunges off cliff

From ABC News comes this bus plunge:

Mexican tourist bus plunges off cliff, killing 67
AP

April 17, 2006 (VERACRUZ, Mexico) - A vastly overcrowded passenger bus veered off a highway emergency ramp and crashed through a metal barrier Monday, plunging more than 650 feet into a ravine in western Mexico. At least 67 people were killed, including four children.
Four people -- including an 8-year-old girl -- were injured in the wreck that came as the bus traveled on steep mountainous roads. It was returning from a religious gathering in the western city of Guadalajara to the passengers' home state of Tabasco, on the Gulf Coast, following Easter week.

Rescuers ended their search for victims after recovering 63 bodies, State Attorney General official Rosa Elvira Gonzalez said. She said four passengers died at local hospitals.

Officials did not provide the ages of the children killed or say whether the driver was among the dead.

The bus, equipped to hold 46 seated passengers, was carrying 71, some of whom were standing up, said Federal Preventive Police Cmdr. Reinaldo Ascencio Cavazos. He said the owner of the bus was detained for questioning. Ascencio said the passengers belonged to a religious group known as The Light of the World.

Police did not immediately know what caused the crash, but said the driver had been trying to maneuver into a lane designed for vehicles that have brake or other mechanical failure as the bus descended one of the area's many winding roads. The bus fell between 650 and 820 feet before coming to rest at the bottom of a ravine, authorities said.

Federal Preventive Police official Arturo Corona told W Radio the bus was traveling at about 68-70 mph. Buses often are required to limit their speed to 60 mph.

Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans filled the highways Sunday and Monday as they returned from Easter week vacations. The holiday typically sees a large number of highway deaths.

The highway where the bus was traveling is considered to be one of the 15 most dangerous in the country, Corona said.