Two officials probed in fatal school van accident

NANCHANG - Prosecutors in East China's Jiangxi province have started investigating two officials for negligence following a school van accident that killed 11 children last month.

The People's Procuratorate of the city of Guixi is probing Li Zhiying, a former member of the Binjiang township committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Wang Ping, a traffic police officer, according to a Monday statement from the procuratorate.

An investigation showed that negligence was a primary factor in the crash, the statement said.

A seven-seat van carrying 15 preschoolers and one teacher plunged into a roadside pond on December 24 in Binjiang township, killing 11 children.

Investigators found that the van, which had been illegally converted into a school bus, was being used by an unlicensed kindergarten.

Twelve officials, including the vice mayor of Guixi and the directors of the local education and transportation bureaus, were suspended from their posts following the crash.