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.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
RSS