An overcrowded tour bus lost control on a slope and flipped over yesterday in Hong Kong, killing 18 members of a local religious group and injuring 45 others. The driver was arrested on charges of dangerous driving.
After visiting the injured, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) told reporters it was the city’s worst traffic accident in recent years.
A double-decker bus crash killed 21 people in 2003.
PHOTO: AP
Local TV reports from yesterday’s crash scene showed mostly elderly passengers covered in blood and wincing in pain as they were being pulled from the vehicle.
The battered bus’ windows were shattered, and it was leaning against a road barrier in the suburban district of Sai Kung.
“We’re still investigating the cause of the accident. We will look at whether it was due to speeding or whether there was anything wrong with the parts of the bus,” said Ho Chak-kan, acting police superintendent.
Ho said the driver was arrested and accused of dangerous driving that caused death. But Hong Kong Cable TV quoted the driver as saying the brakes failed before the accident.
The bus, with a maximum legal capacity of 55 people, was carrying 62 passengers on the religious group’s outing during the public May Day holiday, fire official Li Hung-sam told reporters.
Li said the roof of the bus collapsed after hitting a road barrier at a traffic circle and that hindered rescue efforts.
“Firemen had to climb inside the wreckage to save all the passengers. Inside the wreckage, all the passengers are trapped by the distorted seats,” Li said.
Most of the victims were critically injured, suffering head injuries, severe bleeding and broken bones, Li said. Most of those who died were women, he said.
The accident happened as the bus travelled from Kowloon to Hong Kong’s eastern New Territories, a seaside stretch that is heavily visited by tour groups on public holidays and weekends.
The removal of basic Maori phrases — kia ora, meaning “hello” and Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand — from a lunar new year invitation to an Australian official was not a snub of the indigenous language by New Zealand’s government, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Wednesday, seemingly joking that it instead reflected the “incredibly simple” language required when speaking to Australians. Luxon defended in parliament a lawmaker who ordered the removal of the Maori words from an invitation sent to Australian Minister for the Arts Tony Burke. He appeared to indulge in a favorite pastime of New
The US on Monday confirmed that it would resume sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, as concerns over human rights in the kingdom’s Yemen war give way to US hopes for it to play a role in resolving the conflict in Gaza. More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi Arabian strikes in Yemen, the US Department of State said that it would return to weapons sales “in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation.” “Saudi Arabia has remained a close strategic partner of the United States, and we look forward to enhancing that partnership,”
MINOR TSUNAMI: An official described the surface of the sea ‘wavering’ during the shaking, but tsunamis of only 50cm, 20cm and 10cm were confirmed to have hit A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 shook southern Japan yesterday, but no major damage was reported and only relatively minor tsunami arrived at the coast. The quake hit at 4:42pm off Kyushu at a depth of 25km, the US Geological Survey said. Broadcaster NHK showed footage of traffic lights shaking violently in Miyazaki on Kyushu. “The surface of the sea is wavering. I felt an intense jolt when the quake happened which lasted for between 30 seconds and a minute,” a local official told NHK. The broadcaster also reported that three people were hurt in Miyazaki, but gave no indication of the
Russia yesterday ordered more evacuations in a region bordering Ukraine as it battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory by Kyiv’s forces. Ukraine last week sent troops into Russia’s border region of Kursk, in the largest cross-border operation by Kyiv since Moscow launched its offensive more than two years ago. The assault, which has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing, marked the most significant attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II. A top Ukrainian official said that the operation was aimed at stretching Moscow troops and destabilizing the nation after months of slow Russian advances