Ten people including officials from five government departments
of Chongqing and CEOs of their affiliated commercial ventures have
been given penalties for being held accountable for a major bus
accident that claimed 26 lives in April this year.
The government departments being found to bear unshirkable
responsibility in the fatal road accident are identified as Beibei
District Government, Chongqing Municipal Transportation Commission,
the Municipal State Assets Management Commission, the municipal
security bureau and the Municipal quality supervision bureau,
according to the investigation group.
The accident happened around 8:10 AM on April 23 when a bus
carrying 32 passengers, seven more than its limit, ploughed through
a guardrail of the Changsheng Bridge that spans a narrow gully. It
was traveling on a road that runs parallel to the Jialing River on
its way from downtown Yubei District to Beibei in the suburbs of
Chongqing. The bus plunged 13 meters, killing 22 passengers on the
spot.
Local traffic police blamed overloading and speeding as the main
causes of the accident. They said the bus should not have been
carrying more than 25 passengers.
Li Yizhong, Minister of the State Administration of Work Safety
(SAWS), who rushed to the site of accident shortly afterwards, also
blamed an unsafe bridge for the bus accident. Li said the
guardrails on each side of the bridge were only ten centimeters in
height, far lower than the minimum height of 46 centimeters
required by law.
Further investigation also shows that the bus, which had been
found with problems, had not been pulled out service for more than
half a year. And the No.5 Company Chongqing Branch of China
Construction Seventh Building Corporation Limited, which had been
revamping the Changsheng Bridge when the accident took place, was
also responsible for failing to put up signs of warning and to send
personnel to patrol the construction site.
Among the government department officials and corporate CEOs
punished were Hu Yong, Party secretary and also director of the
communications bureau of Beibei, a district of Chongqing, and Zhang
Dengcai, manager of Beibei Transportation Development Co., Ltd.
Both Hu and Zhang were demoted, plus a grave warning as a
measure of Party discipline, for being held responsible for
granting the contract of revamping Changsheng Bridge inside Beibei
District to the No. 5 Company Chongqing Branch of China
Construction Seventh Building Corporation Limited.
The No. 5 Company Chongqing Branch of China Construction Seventh
Building Corporation Limited, which was found by the investigative
group to have neither independent legal person status nor a license
for safety production, was thrown out of Chongqing's construction
market.
The five government departments were also given warnings by
Mayor Wang Hongju.
Four other responsible persons in the bus accident --driver Gao
Wanyong, who was injured in the accident, bus owner Dong Changming,
and Hu Liumin and Liang Ping, both of whom were testers with
Chongqing Bus Service Yunshan Testing Co., Ltd. -- will face
prosecution, according to the investigation group.
(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2007)