Ten people including officials from five government departments of Chongqing and CEOs of their affiliated commercial ventures have been given penalties for being held accountable for a major bus accident that claimed 26 lives in April this year.

The government departments being found to bear unshirkable responsibility in the fatal road accident are identified as Beibei District Government, Chongqing Municipal Transportation Commission, the Municipal State Assets Management Commission, the municipal security bureau and the Municipal quality supervision bureau, according to the investigation group.

The accident happened around 8:10 AM on April 23 when a bus carrying 32 passengers, seven more than its limit, ploughed through a guardrail of the Changsheng Bridge that spans a narrow gully. It was traveling on a road that runs parallel to the Jialing River on its way from downtown Yubei District to Beibei in the suburbs of Chongqing. The bus plunged 13 meters, killing 22 passengers on the spot.

Local traffic police blamed overloading and speeding as the main causes of the accident. They said the bus should not have been carrying more than 25 passengers.

Li Yizhong, Minister of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), who rushed to the site of accident shortly afterwards, also blamed an unsafe bridge for the bus accident. Li said the guardrails on each side of the bridge were only ten centimeters in height, far lower than the minimum height of 46 centimeters required by law.

Further investigation also shows that the bus, which had been found with problems, had not been pulled out service for more than half a year. And the No.5 Company Chongqing Branch of China Construction Seventh Building Corporation Limited, which had been revamping the Changsheng Bridge when the accident took place, was also responsible for failing to put up signs of warning and to send personnel to patrol the construction site.

Among the government department officials and corporate CEOs punished were Hu Yong, Party secretary and also director of the communications bureau of Beibei, a district of Chongqing, and Zhang Dengcai, manager of Beibei Transportation Development Co., Ltd.

Both Hu and Zhang were demoted, plus a grave warning as a measure of Party discipline, for being held responsible for granting the contract of revamping Changsheng Bridge inside Beibei District to the No. 5 Company Chongqing Branch of China Construction Seventh Building Corporation Limited.

The No. 5 Company Chongqing Branch of China Construction Seventh Building Corporation Limited, which was found by the investigative group to have neither independent legal person status nor a license for safety production, was thrown out of Chongqing's construction market.

The five government departments were also given warnings by Mayor Wang Hongju.

Four other responsible persons in the bus accident --driver Gao Wanyong, who was injured in the accident, bus owner Dong Changming, and Hu Liumin and Liang Ping, both of whom were testers with Chongqing Bus Service Yunshan Testing Co., Ltd. -- will face prosecution, according to the investigation group.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2007)