BEIJING: Twenty-seven people have died in a bus crash in southwest China on Sunday, the country’s deadliest road accident so far this year.
The accident took place on a highway in rural Guizhou province when the vehicle carrying 47 people “flipped onto its side”, Sandu county police said in a statement.
Emergency responders were dispatched to the scene and another 20 people were being treated for injuries.
The accident happened in Qiannan prefecture – a poor, remote and mountainous part of Guizhou, home to several ethnic minorities.
Social media users angrily demanded to know why a passenger bus was travelling down a highway in the early hours when many major roads in the province have been closed to regular traffic.
One hundred toll stations are shuttered in Guizhou because of COVID-19 restrictions and long-distance passenger journeys across China are banned from running between 2am and 5am.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
