Three people were injured in Helsinki on Thursday when a local bus leaving a stop was involved in a collision with another bus that thrust it against the bus stop rain shelter, totally flattening it and knocking down a fully grown linden tree nearby.
All of the injured persons were in the shelter. After the accident they were transferred to the Töölö Hospital. None of the passengers in either of the buses were injured.
According to the City of Helsinki Rescue Department, all patients remained conscious and none of the injuries were life-threatening.
The incident took place just after 3 p.m. in the afternoon, on the northbound lane of Mannerheimintie. There are two adjacent bus stops at the scene of the accident. A Helsinki City Transport (HKL) 345 bus was just leaving the northern bus stop when a Concordia bus approached the southern bus stop. The latter bus then abruptly pulled out when the driver saw there were no passengers waiting in the bus shelter. As a result the Concordia bus hit the emerging HKL bus and pushed it over the bus shelter.
Several ambulances with doctors on board raced to the accident scene, but fortunately the incident was not as bad as could have been expected.
However, police closed the northbound lanes of Mannerheimintie and a diversion had to be arranged for the afternoon’s badly congested traffic. Mannerheimintie is the main north-south thoroughfare into and out of Helsinki.
