BACHOK, Malaysia: Twenty-three students travelling in an army truck were lucky to escape injury when the driver lost control and crashed into two vehicles before stopping in front of a sundry shop at Simpang Empat Gunung here yesterday.

The cadets from SMK Gunong were on the way to the Pengkalan Chepa camp in Kota Baru. All of them were traumatised but otherwise safe.

It is believed that the army truck driver lost control of his vehicle while trying to avoid a lorry, and then crashed into a motorcycle and a car parked by the road in the 10.30am incident.

Teacher Tee Bee Yong, 29, who was eating at the counter of her mother's sundry shop, was shocked when her mother Chuin Pit Som, who was at the front, shouted that her car had been hit by an army truck.

"The impact sent my car flying and ended with it squeezed between the army truck and the neighbouring shop."
The owner of the shop, Lua Ah Beng, said he was at the counter when there was a loud noise.

The truck came to a halt in front of his shop.

"I was lucky that it wrecked only the front of the shop and did not enter the premises.

"Otherwise, it might have hit me and my mother who were inside."

District police chief Deputy Superintendent Yahya Saleh said the army truck driver lodged a report at 3pm. -NST