Six detained after deadly bus blaze

China.org.cn, July 26, 2011

Police have detained six suspects over a deadly bus fire in central China that killed 41 people and injured another six onboard, sources with the Ministry of Public Security said on Monday.

Inflammable chemicals, prohibited from being carried onboard, caused the blaze that occurred early Friday in Henan Province, the sources said citing the result of police investigation.

A bus catches fire on a highway joining Beijing and Zhuhai on July 22, 2011.

The 35-seat bus, which was traveling from the city of Weihai in the eastern Shandong Province to central Hunan's provincial capital Changsha, caught fire at 4 a.m. Friday on the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway.

An earlier?media report said that the?deadly blaze was probably ignited by flammables illegally taken onboard by a passenger, according to its driver.

"I keep thinking that one of the passengers took something flammable on to the bus," Zou Jianzhou, 47, told the China News Service on Sunday.

Zou speculated a passenger might have stored the flammable item at the rear of the vehicle, near the engine.

"Within a second, the fire swept from the back up to the driver's seat," he said.

Zou suffered 10 percent burns to his face, arms and back, but is in stable condition.