China mishaps claim 68 lives

Train derails, forest fire rages

Nineteen passengers were killed and 71 others were injured when a passenger train from Shanghai to the scenic city of Guilin in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region derailed after ramming into landslides in Jiangxi Province.

A spokesman of the Railway headquarters said 8,000 cubic metres of mud and rocks from the landslide were removed from the tracks, after 2,000 rescuers using heavy machinery completed the rescue operation. Several compartments of the train became a twisted mettle crushing many passengers.

The engine along with eight of the 17 carriages of the train derailed and some even overturned in the mountainous area. One carriage was twisted and crushed on the other.
Meanwhile, 32 people were killed after a bus and truck collided on an expressway in Fuxin City, northeast China’s Liaoning Province. Three people on the truck and 28 passengers on the bus were killed on the spot. One of the 22 injured died in hospital.

Another 12 people were killed in forest fire in south western China after they volunteered to douse it. The victims were villagers from Yunnan province who joined to help the authorities to fight a fire that broke out on Saturday.
PTI