Society

Vehicle overloading contributes to deadly expressway crash

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-25 16:53

SHENYANG - A truck and a bus that collided head on, killing 33 people and injuring 24, on a northeast China expressway Sunday were both overloaded, a Liaoning Province police chief said Tuesday.

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A two-day investigation found that the truck with a designed load of 33 tonnes was actually carrying 57.32 tonnes of goods when the crash happened at around 3 a.m. on the Liaoning section of the expressway from Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, to the southern city of Shenzhen, said Yan Qingwen, deputy director of provincial Public Security Bureau.

The bus, with a designed capacity of 35 people, actually had 54 people onboard, when the accident happened, said Yan.

Yan said the overloading was the decisive factor behind the accident.

The accident occurred on an expressway section under maintenance in Fuxin, when the truck veered onto the wrong side of the road. The collision caused a fire.

Seventeen of the 24 injured passengers have been transferred to hospital in the provincial capital of Shenyang. The rest of the injured remain in hospital in Zhangwu County of Fuxin.

Counseling services should be provided for the injured, particularly those who lost family members in the accident, Liang Jiakun, deputy head of the State Administration of Work Safety.