BEIJING - Five road accidents in the past two days have claimed 58 lives as hundreds ofmillions of Chinese journeyed home amid the Spring Festival travel rush that started last week.
Nineteen people were killed in two accidents on Saturday, both involving overloaded vehiclesveering off the road. In south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 19 people were ina van when it tumbled down a 30-meter-deep ravine on a mountain road in Daxin County.
The accident, which happened around 9 am, killed seven passengers and injured 12 others,police said.
Almost at the same time, an overloaded coach turned over and crashed along a 100-meterslope in southwestern Guizhou Province, killing 12 people onboard, rather than the previouslyreported 13, after a hospital reported a mistake in their count of the deceased.
The coach, designed for 19 passengers, was carrying 34 people to a bullfight activity when theaccident occurred in Congjiang County, some 450 km southeast of the provincial capitalGuiyang, sources with the county government said.
On Friday night, another bus in the northwestern province of Gansu fell into a ravine andcaught fire near the county seat of Ningxian, Qingyang City.
Six corpses were found shortly after the accident, and two other people died in the hospitalafter rescue efforts failed.
Rescuers have recovered ten more bodies from the scene of the accident as of Saturdayevening, bringing the death toll to 18.
Thirty-two passengers, mostly migrant farmers and their family members, were injured in theaccident.
Also on Friday, a coach carrying 29 people flipped over into a 100-meter-deep slope in thesouthwestern province of Sichuan, killing 11 onboard and injuring 18 others.
These accidents occurred as China's transportation sector gears up for the Spring Festival, orChinese Lunar New Year, the most important occasion for family reunions that falls onFebruary 10 this year.
A record 3.41 billion trips are expected to be made over this year's Spring Festival travel rush,according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economicplanner.
The country's rail network is expected to handle 225 million trips, while long-distance buses willcarry up to 3.1 billion passengers this year. Trains and long-distances buses will be the modesof transportation in 99 percent of all trips.
However, speeding, overloading and bad driving habits compounded with poor road conditions,especially in some mountainous regions, often lead to a rash of road accidents around this timeof the year.
Traffic accidents on China's roads result in about 70,000 deaths and 300,000 injuries eachyear, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Meanwhile, China's Lunar New Year holiday is also a time when people set off fireworks tocelebrate. Improper storage and transportation of the explosives is another reason behinddeadly accidents ahead of the holiday.
On Friday morning, 10 people died and 11 others were injured when an expressway viaductpartially collapsed after an explosion involving a truck carrying fireworks for holidaycelebrations in central China's Henan Province.
The accident occurred around 9 am on a 30-meter-high viaduct in Mianchi County, SanmenxiaCity, about 193 km west of the provincial capital of Zhengzhou.
An 80-meter stretch of the southern lane of the viaduct collapsed with at least 25 vehicles on it.The probe into the accident is underway.
