30 mainland tourists injured in bus crash

A bus and a storefront are heavily damaged after the vehicle rolled downhill on Monday in Macao. [Photo/Xinhua]

Thirty tourists from the Chinese mainland were injured on Monday when a tour bus crashed into a building in Macao, authorities in the special administrative region said.

Officials from the fire department that conducted the rescue said three of the injured were in serious condition. All were taken to a hospital.

The handbrake is thought to have failed after the bus stopped on a slope, the Macao Public Security Police Force said, and the vehicle rolled downhill, crashing into a clinic next to the road.

The driver was not in the bus.

The injured passengers were from a tourist group organized in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, who had arrived in Macao at about 9 am on Monday and planned to leave in the afternoon.

The driver, a resident of Macao, has seven to eight years of experience in driving and passed a sobriety test, media in Macao reported.

The accident is being investigated.

Chinese mainland tourists made 20.4 million trips to Macao last year, accounting for two-thirds of tourist visits to the special administrative region last year, according to the regional government.