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)