Bus crash kills at least 13 in southwest China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-05 13:53

GUIYANG -- At least 13 people were confirmed dead in a bus crash in southwest China's Guizhou Province Monday, the local government said.

The long-distance sleeper bus carrying 44 passengers veered off a highway in Yanhe County, and crashed down a 80-meter slope at about 7 a.m., a spokesman with the provincial safety administration said.

He said the number of injured was not immediately known.

The bus, owned by a public transport company in Guizhou, was en route from Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, to Yanhe, a rural county in the northeast of Guizhou.

The safety administration said the bus was not overloaded and the cause of the accident was still under investigation.

It did not correlate the accident with the heavy fog that shrouded most parts of Guizhou Monday morning. The provincial road traffic administration said visibility was between 50 and 100 meters on some interprovincial expressways. Traffic police were busy patrolling these roads, and no expressway was closed as of 11 a.m.