Two HK residents die in Guangzhou bus crash
The special administrative region government and mainland authorities have coordinated efforts to provide assistance to victims and their families after a Hong Kong tour group suffered a deadly traffic accident in Guangzhou on Monday.
A tour bus carrying some 40 Hong Kong tourists collided with a truck on a highway in Guangzhou, leaving two people dead and more than 23 injured.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor expressed her deepest condolences to the families of the dead passengers. Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, Lam said the government would provide assistance to them.
The Immigration Department said it had already contacted family members of the deceased.
The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Guangdong’s Chief Immigration Officer Nelson Tong Yick-chung said he had visited hospitalized tourists with officers from the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong SAR. They said they will spare no efforts to help the injured, as well as family members of the deceased.
The accident occurred around 7 pm on Monday, when the bus was driving from Nansha district in Guangzhou to Futian district in Shenzhen.
The tourists had joined a one-day tour by travel agency, Big Line Holiday. They had visited Panyu in Guangzhou, explained Joseph Tung Yiuchung, executive director of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council.
It was reported that nine of the tourists were in a critical condition. They were rushed to two local hospitals in Guangzhou, while others were taken to Hong Kong in eight ambulances organized by the Hong Kong Fire Services Department on Monday night.
The dead are a 61-year-old man and 60-year-old woman who were not related. The nine hospitalized include a man and eight women aged between 37 and 72. They suffer from broken bones and splanchnodiastasis — or the shifting of internal organs.
Tung, who is assisting the victims in Guangzhou, said the decision to send the injured back was based on their own wishes and the opinions of doctors. The Immigration Department and the Liaison Office staff will help arrange transportation.
The bus driver has been placed under arrest by mainland police officers pending further investigation.
A spokesperson for the tourism agency’s mainland arm said the bus was driving at a safe speed and the driver was not asleep at the time of the accident.