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Fist fight caused deadly China bus crash
BEIJING, Nov 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A scuffle between a driver and a
passenger caused their bus to plunge from a bridge into a river in southwest
China, killing at least 13 people, police said Friday.
Dramatic video footage of Sunday’s crash shows a woman striking the driver
over the head with an object, prompting him to hit back with one hand. The
woman then lashes out once more.
The driver then suddenly yanks the wheel hard to the left and the bus veers
onto incoming traffic, striking a car before breaking through the rails of
the bridge crossing the Yangtze River, in the southwest city of Chongqing.
Thirteen bodies have been pulled out of the river, but two remain missing.
A total of 15 people were on board the bus.
Local police say the female passenger involved in the fight, a 48-year-old
local, went up to the driver and asked to be let out after missing her stop.
When the driver refused, the two began shouting and using “aggressive
language”, police said on their Weibo account — China’s equivalent of
Twitter.
Search and rescue teams dispatched more than 70 boats, as well as a team of
scuba divers and underwater robots, to find the wreckage and retrieve bodies
from the water.
“Fifteen lives were lost in an instant — the lessons from this are very
painful,” police said.
Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are
often flouted or go unenforced.
According to authorities 58,000 people were killed in accidents across the
country in 2015 alone. Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90
percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1533 hrs