GEORGE TOWN, Jan 22 — Eight people have given their testimonies to the police on the Sunday Penang Bridge collision that sent a Mazda SUV driven by college student Moey Yun Peng plunging into the sea.
But Seberang Prai Tengah district police chief Assistant Commissioner Nik Ros Azhan Nik Abd Hamid said police will be calling in more people for their statements, adding that no one has been arrested yet.
“We have taken statements from the victim’s friends and family and we will be calling in more witnesses to record their statement,” he told reporters today.
He said police have also yet to get the testimony of the owner of the dashboard camera who video recorded the incident.
The SUV and a Toyota Vios driven by a 21-year-old hairstylist collided on the 13.5km bridge linking Penang island and the mainland at about 2.45am last Sunday. The Vios driver survived with head injuries.
Both drivers were reported to be friends who had celebrated a birthday party with five others at an entertainment outlet in Chulia Street just hours prior to the accident.
Nik Ros said police has yet to record the statement from the Vios driver who is currently under observation at a private hospital.
“We will look at his condition first, we will record his statement soon,” he said.
He said police have CCTV footage and other video recordings of the accident, adding that investigations so far showed Moey was the sole occupant of his SUV.
An operation to raise the submerged SUV and its occupant is currently underway.
Marine Police District 1 Commander Assistant Commissioner Rosman Ismail said about 40 divers from Royal Malaysian Navy, Fire and Rescue Department, Marine Police and Maritime Malaysia are involved.
“The divers started going down to the sea bed in turns as early as 7am to gauge the current and water conditions,” he said.
He said the undercurrents were too strong for the divers to go down to the vehicle and attach the cables to it.
“Our problem is going down to attach the cables to the car before the crane can bring it up,” he said.
As of now, he said they are still awaiting the green light from the divers team before they can use the crane to bring up the car.
Recovery efforts when the car was found yesterday evening failed due to the dimming daylight and strong currents which made attaching cables to the vehicle stuck at a depth of 15 metres difficult.
The operation was called off after two hours, at 7.20pm yesterday and resumed at about 9am today.
