Twenty-seven people were killed and four seriously injured when
a long-distance bus drove off a bridge in southwest China's Chongqing
Municipality at 2:50 AM Tuesday morning, Xinhua News Agency
reported.
Local traffic police said the bus, with 31 people on board,
veered off an 80-meter-high bridge in the rural Qianjiang
District.
Police said the bus was torn apart in the fall and 25 people
were killed instantly, including the driver. Two others died later,
one on his way to a nearby hospital and the other in the emergency
room.
Zhou Mubing, vice mayor of Chongqing, arrived at Qianjiang to
head a 400-member task force to deal with the accident's aftermath.
Medical teams are still working to save the lives of the four
survivors, according to a news release from the district's Work
Safety Bureau.
According to Xinhua, the bus belonged to the Qianjiang
branch of Chongqing Transportation Group and was en route from
downtown Chongqing to the mountainous Qianjiang
District.
"The scene of the accident was extremely tragic, with body parts
scattered everywhere," said Yang Ke, of Chengdu's West China
Metropolis newspaper, who was at the accident site on
Tuesday.
Yang said the accident may have occurred when the driver
attempted to overtake another bus at high speeds on a road slick
with rain. Other reports said it may have been caused by the
driver's sleepiness.
The Ministry of Public Security reports that in the first three
months of this year, there were 117,220 road accidents nationwide,
resulting in 23,411 deaths and 118,887 injuries. The direct
economic loss reached 490 million yuan (US$59 million).
In the same period, 11 serious traffic accidents each leading to
the deaths of more than 10 people killed a total of 232 people. An
accident on February 14 in southwest China's Guizhou
Province killed 15.
The main causes of the road accidents in the first three months,
according to the Ministry of Public Security, were drunk driving,
violation of traffic regulations, speeding and exceeding the
designated number of passengers.
With the approach of spring and the weeklong May Day holiday,
the number of vehicles on the road is increasing. The Ministry of
Public Security has called on all traffic and law enforcement
agencies to strengthen surveillance and take every precaution to
reduce the number of accidents.
(China Daily April 20, 2005)
