Two serious traffic accidents on Saturday resulted in the deaths of
46 people, including one Pakistani citizen, in Northwest China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said the State Administration of
Work Safety (SAWS) Monday. In fact, traffic accidents have become a
major killer in August, alarming both the public and work safety
authorities.
Two serious traffic accidents on Saturday resulted in the deaths of
46 people, including one Pakistani citizen, in northwest China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said the
State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) Monday.
In
one accident, a sleeper bus bound for Kashgar from Urumqi, capital
of the autonomous region, ran off a bridge, resulting in the death
of 34 people, and in another, 12 peopled were killed when a tractor
overturned, according to SAWS.
The causes of the two traffic accidents are still under
investigation.
This August, traffic accidents have become a major killer, alarming
both the public and work safety authorities.
Also on Saturday, an overloaded truck ran through the guard railing
on the right side of a road in south China's Hainan Province,
killing 11 people and injuring 11 others, China News Service
reported Monday.
The truck was carrying five tons of shrimp and 24 passengers, all
of them female.
Investigation by local traffic police revealed that a tyre failure
due to overloading and inappropriate action by the driver caused
the accident, said the report.
Peng Yangguang, the driver of the truck, survived the accident and
was still at large, police said. An investigation is under way.
Elsewhere, rescuers in Hejiang, Sichuan Province, have finished
most of their work in a ship sinking, including the search for
missing passengers and payment of compensation to the families of
the dead, as well as salvaging the sunken ship, reported
Xinhua.
On
August 2, a ferry carrying 40 passengers collided with a barge and
sank in the Yangtze River in Hejiang County. A massive search
recovered 20 bodies from the river, the Xinhua report said.
The local government has since mobilized more than 380 people and
over 120 boats to search more than 180 kilometers of the Yangtze
for the missing passengers.
With advanced DNA identification technology provided by the Sichuan
Provincial Public Security Department, the identities of 14 of the
bodies have been confirmed so far, sources said.
Eleven of the 15 survivors were sent to hospital for treatment and
10 have since been discharged, the sources added.
A
total of 217,000 yuan (US$27,000) has been paid to families of the
accident victims as preliminary compensation.
The local government has also recruited six experts to help salvage
the sunken vessel; The boat has so far been moved about 60 meters
closer to the river bank, said Xinhua.
In
recent years, because of people's lack of safety awareness and
their ignorance of traffic regulations, China has been suffering an
increasingly shocking death toll from traffic accidents, with great
loss of wealth.
SAWS' statistics indicate that 760,000 traffic accidents occurred
last year, killing a total of 100,600 people, with a direct loss of
wealth of 1.39 billion yuan (US$167 million).
To
curb this shocking trend, traffic administration departments and
work safety watchdogs have strengthened administration and
supervision of motor vehicles, especially buses, trucks, and
agricultural vehicles.
(People's
Daily August 13, 2002)