Preschool pupils die in China bus smash inferno
ELEVEN South Korean and Chinese preschool pupils and their driver were killed when a school bus crashed and burst into flames in a tunnel in eastern China yesterday.
The children were aged between three and six and attended a South Korean international school in the city of Weihai, Shandong province, local authorities said.
A teacher was seriously injured in the tragedy, which reverberated in South Korea, whose acting president expressed sorrow.
The Weihai propaganda department said five of the young victims were South Korean and six were Chinese.
But a South Korean consular official in the eastern city of Qingdao said 10 of the children were South Korean, though five of them were dual Chinese nationals. The official also said the children were aged four to seven.
Weihai authorities said the children were on their way to the Weihai Zhongshi South Korean International School when the accident occurred at the Taojiakuang tunnel at around 9am.
An amateur video posted by the People’s Daily on its Twitter account shows cars driving away from the bus, which was stopped near a wall as flames reached the tunnel’s ceiling.
The video’s authenticity could not be immediately verified.
South Korea’s acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn voiced “grave sadness” over the tragedy, which occurred as the country went to the polls to elect a new president.
Deadly road accidents are common in China, where traffic regulations are often flouted or go unenforced by police.