Horror bus crash leaves 36 dead
BEIJING: A bus crash in North Korea has killed 32 Chinese tourists and four North Koreans, the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing said yesterday.
Two other Chinese nationals were injured in Sunday’s accident south of the capital Pyongyang, ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing.
“We are investigating the cause” of the accident, Mr Lu said.
The ministry provided few details but China’s state broadcaster CGTN earlier tweeted that more than 30 people died when a tour bus fell from a bridge in North Korea. The tweet was later deleted.
State broadcaster CCTV broadcasted images of a large overturned vehicle with light rain falling on rescue vehicles and doctors attending to a patient.
China was informed about the accident on Sunday night, and its embassy personnel in Pyongyang rushed to the scene and are working to manage the situation, the foreign ministry said in a statement earlier.
The vast majority of foreign tourists to North Korea are Chinese, with the Cold War-era allies sharing a long land border and operating flights between the two countries.
Western visitors to North Korea, once averaging around 5,000 per year, have seen their numbers dwindle due to the recent US travel ban. Americans accounted for around 20% of the market.
Tens of thousands of Chinese tourists are believed to visit North Korea every year, with many crossing via train through the Chinese border city of Dandong. For some, North Korea provides a window into what Communist China may have looked like decades ago.
Chinese tourism to North Korea has continued even t hough Beijing has enforced a slew of UN sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.
The accident occurred in North Hwanghae province, the foreign ministry said. The area recently hosted a manufacturing complex operated with South Korea.
The tour group was travelling by bus from Kaesong to Pyongyang when the accident happened, according to the independent Seoul-based website NK News, which cited an unnamed source.
North Korean roads are largely in bad condition and riddled with potholes. In many areas, they are dirt rather than tarmac. But the route from Pyongyang to Kaesong, where the accident reportedly happened, is one of the best in the country. It runs from Sinuiju on the Chinese border in the country’s north to the demilitarised zone with South Korea in the south.