KEY POINTS:
Police have charged the driver of the bus which crashed leaving three women tourists from Korea with lost limbs.
The 40-year-old Auckland driver is due to appear in the Tokoroa District Court tomorrow charged with careless driving causing injury.
Taupo police have been investigating the crash near Tokoroa, which has thrown the spotlight on the tourism industry's bus record.
Senior Sergeant Murray Hamilton said that initial investigations revealed the 20-year-old bus had a clean bill of health.
Five women and one man are in Waikato Hospital after the bus left the road and rolled on its side on a straight section of State Highway 1 at Tar Hill, 12km south of Tokoroa.
Three women, two aged 19 and the other 34, have had their right arms amputated.
Two 13 year-old girls are also in Waikato Hospital, one with head injuries, and the other with facial fractures. Both are reported to be comfortable.
A 48-year-old man with internal injuries is in a stable condition in the orthopaedic ward.
The injured were among 17 aboard the bus which crashed shortly after midday on Saturday -- 15 Korean tourists who arrived in New Zealand on Friday, a tour guide and the bus driver.
Investigators at the crash scene on a straight section of State Highway 1 at Tar Hill, about 12km south of Tokoroa, said there appeared to be a lack of "external factors".
The driver of the 30-seat 1987 Isuzu bus on which 15 Korean tourists were collected from Auckland Airport early on Saturday for a six-day tour is believed to have lost control after drifting into loose metal.
When he tried to correct the drift, the bus - which had clocked up more than 500,000km - tipped on its side and slid more than 20m, ripping off the three women's right arms.
Auckland-based Korean consul-general Joon-Hyung Kang has said he would have hoped all New Zealand tour buses were equipped with seatbelts for the protection of their passengers, as he asserted was the case in his country.
Although the Bus and Coach Association does not believe seatbelts should be fitted in older vehicles, executive director John Collyns expressed his organisation's concern at the ease with which new operators could enter the industry with minimal capital investment.
"There is a tremendous amount of consternation within the industry about what's going on," he said.
"How many 20-year-old rental cars do you know of?"
Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven said in response to the weekend crash that he wanted to make seatbelts compulsory in all new tour buses.
Mr Collyns said that was already the case with most new buses, but not second-hand imports, but he would question the value of fitting these with belts. He hoped the police would investigate the amount of experience on New Zealand roads held by the driver in Saturday's crash, who escaped injury.
The bus was one of six owned by an Auckland company, Smile Coach, and received a certificate of fitness in October, a month after the company was registered.
One of the four directors, Hyung Chui Lee, said it was well-maintained and said the driver had six to seven years' experience on local roads.
Mr Lee visited Waikato Hospital yesterday, but said he was unable to see those injured as they were undergoing or awaiting operations.
The 34-year-old female amputee remained in a serious condition last night, but the two younger women were stable. Two 13-year-old girls were also in hospital, one with head injuries and the other with an eye socket fracture.
A 48-year-old man was in a stable condition in the orthopaedic ward, and the hospital was using an interpreter and a Korean nurse to ease the plight of the tourists, some of whose relatives arrived from their homeland yesterday.
Rescue workers reported mayhem as they arrived at the crash scene early on Saturday afternoon to find what Tokoroa deputy fire chief Dave Morris said was "like a scene from main street Baghdad".
Firefighters had to use airbags and hydraulics to lift the bus high enough from the ground to free those trapped inside, including the three who lost their arms.
Once freed, one is reported to have started walking away in a daze from the wreck, repeating in English that she needed her lost arm for her job.
First on the scene were off-duty Te Awamutu ambulance paramedic Nigel Whibley and his mother, Sylvia, who were on their way to Rotorua for a wedding.
Mr Whibley rushed into the bus to treat victims and help others to get out, and won high praise from Mr Morris for his actions.
He was reluctant to be interviewed yesterday, but his mother said he spent a good hour and a half in the thick of the carnage before washing blood off his shirt and carrying on to the wedding reception.
"We got a bottle of water to wash it and his partner hung it out the [car] window to dry," said Mrs Whibley.
Mr Kang said he was "very impressed with the swift rescue operation and appreciates the contribution of all the New Zealanders involved".
