12 Singaporean military personnel injured when 2 armored vehicles collide in Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Twelve military personnel have been injured when two Singaporean armored vehicles collided during a training exercise in Australia, officials said Wednesday.

The personnel “sustained non-serious injuries” when one Hunter Armored Fighting Vehicle “rear-ended another” Tuesday at Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area in Queensland state, a Singapore Defense Ministry statement said.

All 12 received medical care and had rejoined their unit by Wednesday, the Singapore Army said in a statement.

The army paused the exercise overnight “to remind drivers to maintain proper distance” between vehicles, the defense ministry statement said.

“Following the sharing of the incident, with emphasis on the need to maintain the safety distance, especially when driving in poor visibility, training has resumed,” the army statement said.

Eleven of the injured were flown in two helicopters on Tuesday to the Rockhampton Hospital for treatment, Queensland Ambulance Service said in a statement. The hospital said in a statement the last of the injured was discharged on Wednesday.

The army did not provide details of where the 12th person who was not flown to Rockhampton was treated.

The Singapore Armed Forces are conducting Exercise Wallaby, its largest overseas unilateral exercise involving 6,200 personnel.

The annual exercise involving army and air force has been conducted in a training area that covers an expanse of remote Australian coastline four times larger than Singapore since 1990.

The exercise began on Sept. 8 and will continue eight weeks until Nov. 3.

The defense ministry said the armored vehicles had been returning to base at Shoalwater Bay when they collided.

The Associated Press