Leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have expressed their condolences to the families of two Taiwanese tourists who died in a road crash on the mainland on Monday.

Li Weiyi, spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Wednesday that state leaders had made special provision for the treatment of the injured Taiwanese tourists.

Li expressed profound condolences to the families of the dead tourists and wished the injured Taiwanese tourists a speedy recovery.

The accident occurred at 9:45 a.m. Monday on a highway in Wangqing County when 20 Taiwanese tourists were traveling from Heilongjiang Province to Jilin Province. The bus overturned and plunged into a river on the Songlao Highway.

Two women tourists and the bus driver from the Chinese mainland were killed. The dead tourists were Lin Ching-miao, 62, and Leu Hsiu-ching, 66. The other 18 tourists were all injured in the accident.

Li said Wangqing County immediately started its emergency response system. A rescue team of staff from the departments of public security, communications, public health, tourism, the Taiwan Affairs and civil affairs, as well as doctors and medical experts rushed to the scene.

On Tuesday, the injured tourists were transferred to the higher-level hospital affiliated to the government of the Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Yanbian. Experts dispatched by the Ministry of Health and Jilin Provincial government have arrived Yanbian to treat the injured.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2006)