A speeding bus plowed into the back of a tanker truck carrying a highly toxic chemical, killing 16 people, injuring 24 and spreading a wall of flames across a major central China highway.
The accident occurred at about 7pm on Monday evening along a stretch of the country's main north-south highway in the province of Hunan, the Xinhua news agency said.
The explosion that resulted then ignited three other vehicles that were already stopped because of an earlier accident, the report said.
It did not say what substance was in the tank.
An officer with the Hunan provincial highway administration said the truck was carrying toluene, a hazardous chemical that is used in the manufacture of paints, paint thinners, fingernail polish and other similar products.
The officer, who identified himself only by his surname, Luo, said the injured were being treated at hospitals, but he did not know their conditions. He gave a slightly different account of the accident, saying two buses first collided and a second truck also carrying hazardous materials was involved.
Authorities brought traffic to a complete halt along the Beijing-Zhuhai highway, which only recently reopened after being closed by freak storms that encrusted it with ice.
The accident underscored the widespread disregard for safety measures when transporting dangerous materials in China, along with deep-set problems with overloading, poorly maintained vehicles and hazards brought about by reckless or overworked drivers.
A week ago, a tanker truck carrying 30 tonnes of sulfuric acid overturned on a highway in southwestern China, spilling the corrosive chemical into a drainage ditch that feeds into a river.
The long-term environmental impact of the accident in Yunnan Province was unclear. Xinhua said the spill resulted in "serious pollution" and killed large numbers of fish.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing